§ (Mr. Campbell-Bannerman, Mr. Solicitor General for Ireland.)
§ COMMITTEE. [Progress 24th April.]
§ Bill considered in Committee.
§ (In the Committee.)
§ MR. HEALYrose to a point of Order. He wished to ask whether the Chief Secretary for Ireland was correct in stating that the Question, "That Clause 6 be added to the Bill," had not yet been disposed of?
§ MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANsaid that it would still be necessary to put that Question.
§ SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACHremarked that the clause as it now 1329 stood was perfect nonsense; and surely, if the first part were allowed to stand in the Bill, the Government would consent to strike out the last four lines, which really meant nothing at all. After the first part had gone it would be impossible to retain the last.
THE CHAIRMANpointed out that it would be necessary to leave out the remainder of the clause, seeing that in the shape in which it now stood it was not intelligible. What had already been done was to omit the first part, upon which the second depended.
§ THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. WALKER)said, he would be prepared at the proper time to omit the remainder of the clause.
§ Amendment proposed, that Clause 6 be amended by leaving out all the words after "Dublin," in line 21, down to the word "order," in line 26.
§ Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause."
§ MR. HEALYremarked that what had occurred on Thursday week rendered it undesirable to retain any part of the clause. He would ask the Chief Secretary if he proposed to bring up a new clause?
§ MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANsaid, that on Monday he would be able to state what it was the Government proposed to do. It would certainly be necessary to bring up a new clause.
§ MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANsaid, he thought it would be necessary to re-commit the Bill.
§ Question put, and negatived.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Clause 6, as amended, stand part of the Bill."
§ MR. PARNELLsaid, he had intended to move the omission of the clause; but after the statement of the Chief Secretary he did not propose to do so. He would suggest, however, that the most convenient course would be to strike out the clause altogether, so as to enable the House to discuss the new clause which the Government proposed to bring up in Committee.
§ COLONEL NOLANsaid, that a point of Order had been raised by the answer of 1330 the Chief Secretary. Would it now be possible in Committee to put in a new clause? His own opinion was that it would not be possible in Committee, but that it should be done on Report. He should like, therefore, to be informed, as a point of Order, whether the new clause could be inserted in the Bill in Committee, either by re-committal or otherwise? He thought himself that no charge could be imposed upon the Poor Law Guardians in Committee.
§ Clausestruck out.
§ Amendment proposed, to leave out Clause 7.—(Mr. Campbell-Bannerman.)
§ Amendment agreed to.
§ Clauses 8 and 9 agreed to.
§ MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN moved, after Clause 5, to insert the following clause:—
§ (Power to appoint additional revising barristers.)
§ "The Lord Lieutenant may, if he thinks it necessary, appoint one or more barrister or barristers, of not less than six years' standing at the bar, to act with the chairman or revising barrister of any county or borough in revising the list of voters in such county or borough in the year one thousand eight hundred and eighty-five.
§ "The chairman, or revising barrister, and the person or persons so appointed, shall arrange for the distribution between them of the business of such revision.
§ "Every barrister so appointed shall have the same powers and authorities in every respect in regard to such revision as a chairman has under the Registration Acts, and shall be paid as remuneration for his services, out of moneys to be provided by Parliament, such sums as the Lord Lieutenant, with the consent of the Treasury, may determine.
§ "In any county or borough in which more revision courts than one are appointed to sit at the same time it shall be lawful for the clerk of the peace, with the approval of the Lord Chancellor, to nominate a person to attend before any of such courts other than that before which such clerk of the peace himself attends, and to discharge the duties imposed by law upon the clerk of the peace in respect of such revision.
§ "The person so appointed shall be paid, out of moneys to be provided by Parliament, such remuneration for his services as the Lord Chancellor with the sanction of the Treasury may determine."
§ Clause brought up, and read the first time.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the said Clause be read a second time."
§ MR. HEALYsaid, that this was a very important clause: and he wished 1331 to remark with regard to it that, while he was perfectly content with the action of Her Majesty's Government in introducing a clause for the appointment of these additional barristers to assist when it was necessary in the work of revision; while he considered it was a very proper thing for them to do, and that they deserved consideration on that account, at the same time it was very necessary for Irish Members to know who those Revising Barristers were to be, If they were to assent to the clause without having that information, they would be, so to speak, "buying a pig in a poke." The Boundary Commissioners had been appointed without their knowing anything about them, and the Nationalist Party were now smarting under their action; and if those Revising Barristers were appointed in the same way they might be quite unable to fight any registration cases that required to be contested. There was nothing which the people in Ireland felt so keenly interested in as this question of Revising Barristers. People were sometimes kept waiting about the Court for a week; and if a man did not happen to be present when his name was called his case was passed over, although if, as was sometimes the case, the Revising Barrister was a fair man, he would allow a little law. In his own neighbourhood the Revising Barrister was a man of over 80 years of age, and quite unable to take cognizance of what was going on in Court; and he believed that 30 years ago he sentenced a man to be hanged for stealing a cow. He would like to know who those barristers were to be? He and his hon. Friends did not care very much about any of the four Provinces of Ireland in this matter except Ulster; and with regard to the matter he did not think that he should be inclined to throw any additional expense upon the Treasury. He thought it would be quite unnecessary to give additional assistance to the Revising Barristers, except in places where there would be contests; and the Government might make up their mind that in Munster, Leinster, and Con-naught, the people would be put on the Electoral Roll en bloc. But in the Ulster counties the case would be very different. In respect of the other 24 counties of Ireland, therefore, he thought the Government might save their money. In the counties of Cavan and Monaghan 1332 there would be no fight; but in Tyrone, Armagh, Donegal, Derry, the Western Division of, Down, and in Fermanagh there would be enough work for three or four Revising Barristers in each case; every vote would be regarded as if the Election itself depended upon it. Therefore he repeated that it was in those counties in which would arise a conflict at election time that the Government should provide additional assistance for the Revising Barrister. Take the case of Mr. Piers White. Well, he was an extremely able lawyer for whom he had the greatest respect, and certainly well qualified for the position that had been assigned to him; but it was well known how political rewards were given in Ireland; and if his appointment dated from the time when he jerrymandered the divisions of Irish counties, then he thought that the people of Ireland would have a very strong suspicion in his case. In the same way with regard to barristers to be appointed under this Act. They had no security for the confidence they were asked to place in them; they had no guarantee and therefore could not trust them; and unless they saw their names in black and white, and ascertained what kind of men were to be appointed, they would be passing this clause blindfold. He trusted they would have some statement before the Bill left the House with regard to the barristers to be appointed. It was a question which affected the barristers themselves equally with Irish Members, and it was one on which he contended that all parties interested ought to be satisfied.
§ MR. GIBSONsaid, he was glad that the Government had presented to the Committee an elastic clause like the present, because it was obvious that, as had been pointed out by the hon. and learned Member for Monaghan (Mr. Healy), the work to be performed by the Revising Barrister would vary greatly in the different counties of Ireland. There were some counties in which the work must be very laborious, and where in consequence the work of the Revising Barristers would extend over a period of, perhaps, six weeks, or, at all events, a considerable time, and unless they gave all the assistance they could to the County Court Judge he would not be able to get through his business at all—it would be impossible for him to do the work 1333 well. He was glad to see that the Government proposed to take powers not to appoint one man only in each county, but two or more as they might think fit and the exigencies of the work might demand; and he would not be surprised if it were found that the provision made for some cases, in the first instance, required to be considerably supplemented. He did not ask the Government to create any army of assistance for the County Court Judge and burden the country with the cost, because it would be probably unnecessary; but there should be sufficient assistance to enable him to do his business properly. As urged by the hon. and learned Member for Monaghan there would be strong contests in some places in Ireland, and it was likely that districts where the Legal Advisers of the Crown would seek, election would be keenly contested—and it was in such places that additional assistance would be largely required. It was desirable that in every place they should have a clean Register; and it would not be reasonable to expect that the County Court Judge should dispose of thousands of fresh names that would be put on the Register as the result of recent legislation without any assistance or extra remuneration. Therefore, where there was any kind of political contest, it was for the Government to see that the provision of the Act of Parliament was adequately carried out, and that as far as might be there was a pure Register, and that he said in the interest both of electoral law in Ireland, and also in the interest of the County Court Judges. The County Court Judges did not receive large salaries; they had to perform a great deal of the judicial work of the country, and it would not be fair to give them a great increase of work without giving them corresponding remuneration, or what was the equivalent to it—that was to say, taking care that their extra work should not be allowed to interfere with the remuneration they were in the habit of getting and which they had a right to expect. With regard to what had been said as to putting in the Bill the names of 12 barristers of the Irish Bar who commanded universal confidence amongst Parties in Ireland, if that were to be the settlement of the matter accepted by the Government, he would wait compliance with it almost with a feeling of intense curiosity. He was 1334 well acquainted with the Irish Bar and had great respect for its members, no matter of what creed or politics they wore. He thought it would hardly be possible for the Government to name a considerable number of barristers of six years' standing and upwards to discharge this duty—at any rate the list would be an exhaustive one. He thought that, in the first instance, the Government should only name as many Assistant Barristers as they considered to be absolutely necessary, but reserve power to themselves to extend the list as far as experience showed it to be desirable to do so, and that they should waive all political feeling in their selection. Therefore, if it should be necessary to move a statutory provision in the way indicated, he thought it would be well to trust in this as in many other cases to the discretion of the Executive. The Committee were all watching to see that the Government did not appoint rabid partizans on any side to exercise this function, and it was the duty of the Government to find fair men of good professional character who would be anxious honestly to carry out the provisions of this important Act of Parliament.
§ MR. SEXTONsaid, he did not consider that the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Gibson) had fairly represented the argument of his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Monaghan (Mr. Healy). They all agreed that some such provision as that contained in the present clause would be necesary in Ireland in certain cases. The number of those cases could be ascertained with tolerable certainty. He believed that the right hon. and learned Gentleman who had just spoken would not say that, except in the County and City of Dublin and in Ulster, there would be any contest between the two English Parties. The general impression in Ireland was, that neither the Liberal nor the Tory Party would be interested to any extent in any election outside Ulster, except that in the county of Dublin. He did not think that in the other cases the work of the Revising Barristers would be great, or that the salaries of the County Court Judges need be increased. He believed that, except in the case of Dublin, they would be able to get through their business without extra remuneration. In Ulster 1335 they would require assistance—particularly in respect of those counties with, regard to which questions had been raised in that House during the passage of the Parliamentary Elections (Redistribution) Bill—that was to say, the counties that had been jerrymandered in order to procure a Party triumph. In those counties thousands of people would flood the Registers—objections would be taken on various grounds to many of them, and the work of revision would be protracted, and the County Court Judge would want assistance. Probably about 10 appointments would be requisite in Ireland. The right hon. and learned Gentleman thought that the Government should not put the names in the Bill; but the Irish Members had never asked for that. They asked that before the Bill passed out of the hands of Parliament the names should be communicated to the House; or, if the actual names were not communicated to the House, at any rate that a list should be made out on the assumption that 10 appointments were to be made, and that they should have a list of, say, 20 names out of which the Government would make their selection. The right hon. and learned Gentleman thought it would be difficult, if not impossible, to get a dozen names of barristers whose appointment would not provoke general hostility; he (Mr. Sexton) believed it would not be difficult to get the names of such persons, especially amongst those barristers of more than six years' standing whose political passions, it was only reasonable to suppose, had been somewhat mellowed by time. Did the right hon. and learned Gentleman mean to say that those men could not be found? There were more than 400 practising barristers in Ireland, and surely there were a dozen men amongst them who had not taken up any violent position in politics, and who, although they should not command general confidence, might at least be appointed by the Government without provoking hostility. He asked whether the Government would not make the arrangement proposed, and submit a list to the House of persons to assist the County Court Judges in Ireland? The right hon. and learned Gentleman had made a suggestion which he (Mr. Sexton) regarded as worthless, and which he thought the right hon. and learned Gentleman him- 1336 self suspected was not very valuable. He had spoken of the check that would be afforded by public opinion. But of what use had public opinion been to them? Irish Members had been trying throughout the passage of the Parliamentary Elections (Redistribution) Bill to reverse the tricks of the Boundary Commissioners in jerrymandering the counties in the North of Ireland. They had public opinion with them—they had 75 per cent of the Irish electorate with them; but public opinion was of no use to them as a check on power, and it was so, because, as the right hon. and learned Gentleman knew, the check of public opinion was perfectly worthless whenever a Party cry was raised on any question in Ireland. Now, Irish Members on those Benches could not accept the check of public opinion, for the reason that it did not operate in that House; and the only security they could accept as being in any way satisfactory was the security that would be afforded by a list of unexceptionable barristers under the Government guarantee.
§ MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANsaid, he was afraid that what the hon. Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton) had suggested was hardly practicable; he did not know that the course proposed by the hon. Member had been followed in any case of the kind. Where Commissioners were specially mentioned in Bills the case was altogether different; but certainly he could not find that there was any precedent for doing what was now asked for, where it was merely laid down that certain additional officials should be appointed in order to carry out general duties proscribed in a Bill. He need hardly say that the Government would not in those appointments be influenced by any of the motives suggested by the hon. and learned Member for Monaghan (Mr. Healy). As occasion arose, so would additional Revising Barristers be employed in the counties in which their services might be required, although he was afraid that any assurance which he could give would be of very little value in the eyes of the hon. and learned Member so far as this subject was concerned. The only object and desire of the Government was to have competent persons to do the work impartially and thoroughly. The hon. and. learned Member asked if the Government would give a guarantee? Well, 1337 he was afraid they could give no guarantee except the assurance he had given, that they had no intention of doing anything unfair in this matter. If they could find impartial gentlemen qualified for those appointments—and, personally, he should be surprised if such could not be found—they would employ them. But two things were necessary—first, that they should be impartial; and, next, that everybody should think that they were impartial. He was not quite so sanguine about securing the second of those conditions as he was with regard to the first; but he could assure the hon. and learned Member that no effort on their part should be spared to find men in both respects, suitable for this difficult position. The Government were fully impressed with the necessity of having persons who were free from suspicion, especially in the cases of the counties alluded to by the hon. and learned Member, in which there was, no doubt, a strong feeling as to the state of the Register.
§ MR. LEWISthought that if they could not trust the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland to select, out of 400 practising barristers, those 12 or 18 persons to act for a week, or a fortnight at most, in certain counties of Ireland, the sooner they displaced him the better. He did not suggest for one moment that the interests of any Party were likely to be damaged by this very important provision. He thought it likely that some 20 barristers, perhaps, would get 50 or 60 guineas for a week or ten days' work, and that, as in his own county so with others, they would not probably be required at all; and the number of counties in which additional Revising Barristers would be needed would, in his opinion, be very limited. No doubt there were some constituencies to be found, even in Ireland, which would return Members who would vote for what was called the English Party, and who represented those who still adhered to the Union. He thought that objections might be offered to their being on the Register by the so-called Nationalist Party; but whatever the duties of the additional Revising Barristers were, they would only extend over a short space of time, and he thought it was reducing legislation to a farce to ask the Government to give before the Bill was passed the names of the persons who might be employed,
§ MR. H. G. ALLENsaid, he thought the hon. and learned Member for Monaghan (Mr. Healy) and the hon. Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton) had gone out of their way in anticipating that the Revising Barristers would be ill-advised enough to be guilty of any act of partizanship with regard to the registration of voters. He thought those hon. Members might feel some interest in hearing from those who had had large experience in matters connected with registration that there was no such thing as partisanship on the part of Revising Barristers in England. He spoke as one who had been a Revising Barrister for many years, and had had much experience not only as to the feeling and disposition of barristers of his own political opinions, which would be little to the point, but with respect to the feeling of those of all parties; and he believed there was no such thing known as partizanship on the part of Revising Barristers from one end of the Kingdom to the other. When a young barrister was appointed to the position his one anxiety was that his decisions should be received with respect—that they should be given according to law, and with an entire absence of partiality to any political Party whatever; his great point was that his decisions should be legally correct, and not such as to be over-ruled by the Court above, and that he should establish his name and reputation in the Courts of Law as a sound lawyer. That, at any rate, was the case in England; and now with regard to partizanship amongst the Irish barristers. The hon. and learned Member opposite (Mr. Healy) desired to have the names of the persons to be appointed to assist in the work of registration in order that their qualifications might be discussed by politicians, a course, in his opinion, that would be derogatory to their position as judicial officers, and not likely to bring about any useful result. He (Mr. H. G. Allen) ventured to repeat, that any such feeling as partizanship was unknown amongst Revising Barristers in this country; and, from what one knew of members of the Irish Bar whom they met in the English Courts of Law and at the social tables in the Inns of Court, he did not think that they differed from Saxon barristers very much in that respect. For himself, he should have thought that the Lord Chief Justice of 1339 Ireland would have been a better authority than the Lord Lieutenant in whom to vest those appointments; but, however that might be, he trusted and felt full confidence that all sinister predictions as to partizanship on the part of Irish Revising Barristers would be entirely falsified. He had made these remarks, because he believed that the revision of voters in Ireland had been hitherto in hands of Chairmen of Sessions and County Conrt Judges, and that the appointment of Revising Barristers, of which there was so much experience here, was, as yet, an untried mode of proceeding there.
§ MR. HEALYsaid, the answer to the hon. and learned Gentleman who had just spoken might be summed up in the words—that the British Constitution was the law in England, but not in Ireland. The hon. Member for Londonderry (Mr. Lewis) thought it would be all right if the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland had the appointing of those barristers. But they knew very well that the Government did not care for their opinion, or for the opinion of the majority of the people of Ireland; the only question they asked themselves was, "How will the Tory Party view our conduct?" They had to please the Tories in this matter. And it would be just the same with the Revising Barristers as it had been with the appointment of the Boundary Commissioners. Some hon. Gentleman—a Member of the Tory Party—would probably go to Dublin Castle and see the Irish Solicitor General, and describe a friend of his as being an admirable person for the post of Revising Barrister; then someone would meet the Solicitor General for Ireland in the street and give the individual's name, and say "he is a member of our Club," and in that way the appointment would be made. As to telling Irish Members that the most impartial persons would be appointed, it bad no weight with them whatever. He would not go into details; but he should like to hear the Solicitor General for Ireland get up and justify at the Table of the House an appointment made last year. The Solicitor General for Ireland would not deny that he got a Bill passed in the House last year under a promise, and that subsequently that promise was broken, owing to the intervention of Earl Spencer. That was the state of 1340 things they had to contend with; and with regard to those appointments, Earl Spencer would take out a list of Freemasons, and barristers who were Freemasons would be appointed; he would look up the men who belonged to Orange Lodges and appoint them. There would be no such thing as deferring to public opinion in the matter. He repeated that that was how those affairs were managed in Ireland; and if the Solicitor General for Ireland would challenge him as to what happened last year in Dublin Castle, be ventured to say that the statement he should make would surprise the Committee a great deal. Under the circumstances, Irish Members felt that they ought to have some guarantee with regard to the appointments in this case. How was the Boundary Commission appointed? The Tory Party got its representative upon it, and likewise the Whig Party; but the Party who had three-fourths of the representation of the country were not allowed to have a single man to represent them on that Commission. When they came to the House next year the work of the Revising Barristers would be a thing of the past, a new Parliament would have been elected, and if Irish Members had cause to complain of the action of the Revising Barristers, and put forward their complaint in that House, the right hon. Gentleman on the Treasury Bench would simply laugh in their faces. Irish Members felt that they could not allow the seats in Ireland to be subject to a second course of jerrymandering; and therefore he again urged upon the Government to consent to give the names of the barristers to be appointed to assist in the work of revision before the Bill left the House.
§ SIR PATRICK O'BRIENsaid, that his experience of such matters was that in former days in Ireland appointments of a legal character were made by the Attorney General or Solicitor General, who exercised the patronage, although the Lord Lieutenant or any other layman might nominally hold the position of making the appointments. He was sorry, however, to see that Attorneys General and Solicitors General did not maintain their position as they bad been accustomed to in former days, when they would not have allowed a Cabinet Minister to interfere with them in the duty which they had to perform in that 1341 House. He believed that these appointments would be made by those who were best qualified to make them by their knowledge of the legal position and intelligence of those whom they appointed. He thought that hon. Members opposite below the Gangway were living in a fool's paradise. Ulster had always been the special seat of disorder, at least of political and religious strife in Ireland, and in many constituencies probably throughout the three Provinces hon. Gentlemen opposite would be indulged with a contest. They seemed to think that, with the exception of the county of Dublin, there would be a lullaby all over three Provinces in Ireland at the coming General Election, and that no assistance would be required from the Revising Barrister or the County Court Judge, who in Ireland was always the Chairman of Quarter Sessions, although that was not the case in England. Hon. Gentlemen opposite appeared to think that only one state of political feeling would prevail in Ireland; but he had often heard the name of "progress" used, and when the new constituencies were formed there was certainly no guarantee that a good many of the Nationalist Representatives, as they called themselves, might not be replaced by the labourers themselves. ["Hear, hear!"]
§ MR. T. P. O'CONNORsaid, it would not be in Order to follow up the allusion of the hon. Member to the labourers' question; but he noticed that it had received a cheer from the hon. Member for Londonderry (Mr. Lewis). He presumed that the hon. Member meant to insinuate that the cause of the labourers had not received sufficient attention from those Benches.
§ SIR PATRICK O'BRIENUntil lately.
§ MR. T. P. O'CONNORimagined that, in the opinion of the hon. Member for Londonderry (Mr. Lewis), the Labourers Bill would already have become law if it had not been for the obstruction of two hon. Gentlemen sitting on his own Benches. No one would dispute the good intentions of the hon. and learned Member for Pembroke (Mr. H. G. Allen); but, at the same time, the observations of the hon. and learned Gentleman showed invincible ignorance. The Irish Revising Courts were altogether the reverse of those in England. 1342 The hon. and learned Gentleman said the Revising Barristers of England were anxious to discharge their duties with thorough impartiality, that they avoided everything which bore the semblance of partizanship, and that they were kind and courteous to everybody who appeared before them. It was very different in Ireland, and he would say that there were no tribunals even in that country which gave grosser instances of partiality and partizanship than the Revising Courts there. He was prepared to justify his statement that the only way in which the Irish Courts of Revision could be properly described was by applying to them epithets which were the complete antithesis of those which had been applied by the hon. and learned Gentleman to the Revising Barristers' Courts in England. He would suggest that his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Monaghan (Mr. Healy) should enlarge his demand, and not only ask the Chief Secretary to name the 14 gentlemen who were to be appointed Revising Barristers in Ireland, but require that they should be all Englishmen, because in that case the Irish people would have a far better guarantee of the impartiality of the tribunal. [Mr. LEAMY dissented.] His hon. and learned Friend the Member for the City of Waterford (Mr. Leamy) dissented from that view. He could fully understand the feeling of his hon. and learned Friend. The hon. and learned Gentleman was a member of the Legal Profession in Ireland; and, no doubt, if he were appointed, they might depend upon the impartiality of the tribunal. But in Ireland it would be impossible to obtain the services of such men, and he (Mr. O'Connor) was prepared to stand by his opinion that the people would have a far better chance of securing fair treatment from English Revising Barristers than from those selected by the Lord Lieutenant and the Attorney and Solicitor General for Ireland. There was too much cause for suspicion that barristers appointed by Earl Spencer would, in collusion with the agents of the Tory Party, manage to deprive a large number of persons of their votes. He might, perhaps, be allowed to refer to a circumstance which occurred some time ago. Under the Registration Law, every person who desired to get upon the Register was 1343 obliged to give personal attendance; and, as his hon. Friend the Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton) well knew from personal experience, a man who preferred a claim was sometimes required to be in attendance for three or four days, yet if he happened to go out of the Court for a few minutes and his name was called in his absence, a partizan Revising Barrister deprived him of his vote. There was another fact he would mention. Sometimes a man whose name was objected to was actually in Court, but, owing to the mumbling way in which his name was read over, he was unable to answer to it, the name was passed over, and in that case also the voter was deprived of his rights. Those were some of the scandals which occurred in Ireland every time a Revising Barristers' Court was held; and yet the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Pembroke (Mr. H. G. Allen), with his kindly feeling, came forward to tell the Committee that the Irish Members were rather too severe in their estimate of the character of the Revising Barristers appointed to act in that country. He thought that his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Monaghan (Mr. Healy) was perfectly justified in pressing the matter upon the attention of the Chief Secretary. The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Gibson), who by that time had acquired perfect command over his Parliamentary demeanour, had used language which no one would better appreciate than the right hon. and learned Gentleman himself; but, nevertheless, there was a public opinion in Ireland, although with perfect certainty they might lay down the rule that whoever might be appointed by Earl Spencer to act as Revising Barrister would not be amenable to it. The Chief Secretary would be able very easily, between that and the further stages of the Bill, to prepare the names of 12 or 14 gentlemen for appointment as Revising Barristers, and if he would not put them into the Bill he might state them to the House. If there were anything like fairness in the selection, the right hon. Gentleman might rest assured that no factious opposition would be raised to them by the Irish Members.
§ MR. FINDLATERregretted that the experience of his hon. and learned Colleague, for the very short period since he 1344 had joined the ranks of the Irish Bar, had been such as to induce him to say that its members were likely to be actuated by partizan motives in discharging the duties of Revising Barristers.
§ MR. FINDLATERsaid, the Committee had generally understood the hon. and learned Gentleman to say so. No doubt many generalities had been stated; but he had not heard a single case adduced by hon. Members opposite of any injustice done by members of the Irish Bar when placed in judicial or quasi- judicial positions. His knowledge of that Bar was much longer than that of his learned Colleague; and he must say that in the whole course of his experience of over 30 years, he never knew anything of the kind to occur. The best proof he could offer of his hon. and learned Colleague's having made a charge, such as he alleged, was that as an illustration of what might be expected from the barristers who would be appointed by the Government, the name of Mr. Piers White had been referred to, and he was charged with having manipulated some of the Northern constituencies when acting as a Boundary Commissioner. He had been acquainted with Mr. Piers White for years, and he was satisfied that everyone who knew that gentleman must have formed the highest opinion of his character and of his ability to do any work that might be intrusted to him. He was a splendid lawyer, with an eminently judicial mind, occupying the very highest position at the Bar, a man of profound culture, and quite incapable of such practices as were attributed to him. If anyone would look at the map of Ireland which had been published some time ago in connection with a certain newspaper in which his hon. and learned Colleague was largely interested, and which purposed to show the constituencies which would return Nationalists at their next Election, they would notice that all of it, with the exception of a small portion at the North-East corner, was coloured green, the national colour; so that, notwithstanding the charges made against Mr. Piers White, it was plain the Nationalist Party expected to carry nearly the whole of the country, and that the imputations were the merest clap-trap. ["Order!"]
§ MR. FINDLATERsaid, that his principal reason for rising to take part in the discussion was to defend the members of the Irish Bar from the attack which had been made upon them. He had had very much more experience of the Irish Bar than his hon. and learned Colleague; and he was proud to say that he had had most intimate and friendly relations with some of the most eminent men at that Bar. He believed there was no member of it who was not actuated by as high motives as the Sister Bar of this country, and who was not altogether incapable of the improper conduct which had been suggested.
§ MR. HEALYsaid, that the hon. Member had, as usual, shown his ability to misunderstand a perfectly clear statement. All that was asked was that impartial men should be selected for those appointments, and there was no aspersion upon the character of the Irish Bar in making that request. His hon. Colleague had shown himself incompetent to understand the nature of the argument.
§ MR. FINDLATERvery much regretted that his hon. and learned Colleague had brought in the name of Mr. Piers White as that of a gentleman who had been engaged in "jerrymandering" the constituencies. The hon. and learned Member had referred to that gentleman as an illustration of what the gentlemen appointed by the Government were likely to be. As to the flattering comments of the hon. and learned Gentleman upon his own capacity, he could only say "perhaps he was not such a fool as he looked."
MR. MACARTNEYsaid, he understood the proposal to be that the names of the barristers who were to be appointed to act as Revising Barristers should be submitted to the House. He wished to know if that was the practice in appointing Revising Barristers in England? If it was not, there could be no reason for doing so in the case of Ireland; and, therefore, there was no ground for the extraordinary proposition which had led to this extremely unnecessary and unpleasant discussion.
§ MR. SEXTONsaid, the request made to the Government was not that the 1346 names of the Revising Barristers to be appointed in Ireland should be submitted for the approval of Parliament, but that they should be made known to Parliament. So far as Mr. Piers White was concerned, he had not been accused of "jerrymandering" one constituency, but of "jerrymandering" six or seven.
§ MR. WILLIAM REDMONDsaid, he hoped that his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Monaghan (Mr. Healy) would press the demand he had made that the names of the Revising Barristers should be made known before the Bill became law. It was true that there were many barristers in Ireland who, if appointed, would act in a fair and impartial spirit; but it was also true that in Ireland, as in other countries, there were barristers who could not be regarded as impartial. As that was specially the case in Ireland, what the Committee had to consider was not whether gentlemen of sufficient impartiality could be obtained, but the character of the person or persons who were to appoint those legal gentlemen. It was proposed in the new clause submitted by the Chief Secretary that—
The Lord Lieutenant may, if he thinks it necessary, appoint one or more barrister or barristers, of not less than six years standing at the Bar, to act with the Chairman or Revising Barrister of any county or borough in revising the list of voters.The simple fact that by this proposal the power was to be placed in the hands of the Lord Lieutenant was quite sufficient to arouse the suspicion and hostility of the Irish Members. He had not the slightest hesitation in saying that the very fact of the appointments being in the hands of a man of the character and position of the present Lord Lieutenant was sufficient to induce the Irish Members to oppose the clause. It was altogether preposterous that appointments of so important a character should be left to the Lord Lieutenant. The Revising Barristers would have to perform most important public duties in connection with matters that were of the highest interest to the Irish representation; and that being the case, the people of Ireland and their Representatives ought to have some influence over the appointments made. The very least the Government could do was to place the names of the persons they proposed to appoint before the House, so that if there were 1347 any objections they might be duly ventilated. Certainly they were bound to oppose the proposal to leave the whole matter in the hands of a man like Earl Spencer, and he hoped his hon. and learned Friend (Mr. Healy) would divide the Committee.
§ Motion agreed to.
§ Clause read a second time, and added to the Bill.
§ MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN moved, after Clause 6, to insert the following Clause:—
§ (Informalities in Registration shall not affect validity of Register.)
§ "As regards the registers of voters to be made in the year one thousand eight hundred and eighty-five, no election shall be questioned by reason of any error or informality whatsoever in relation to the forming, printing, publishing, revising, or completing the lists of voters, or the register of voters, for any county or borough, or by reason of any matter or thing not having been done within the time limited by law for that purpose. The signature of the chairman or revising barrister, or his deputy, to such register shall be conclusive evidence that such register has been in all respects duly made and revised, at the time and in the manner prescribed by and in conformity with the Parliamentary Registration Acts and this Act."
§ (Collectors shall give assistance in serving notices.)
§ "The collectors of poor rate in a union shall assist the clerk of the union in carrying into effect the duties imposed upon the clerk by the ninth section of 'The Representation of the People Act, 1884,' by serving the notices mentioned in that section and otherwise."
§ Clause brought up, and read the first time.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the said Clause be read a second time."
§ MR. SEXTONsaid, this was an extremely useful clause, as far as it went, and it enacted the important principle that no Register should be rendered invalid on account of any informality. The effect of the clause was to guard against informalities or irregularities in the forming, printing, and completing of the Register by officials; but he thought it ought to be extended by preventing the disfranchisement of persons who through mistake or ignorance did not comply with all the required formalities. He held in his hand a copy of a form issued in Ireland, which was of a most complicated and troublesome character. It referred to— 1348
Property in respect of which the person making the return is rated or liable to be rated.An expression very vague, and not easy to understand. Even an educated man might fill that column in in a manner that would not be perfectly formal or in accordance with the Act. The second column required the situation or description of every dwelling to be given "as defined by the Representation of the People Act;" and the third required the "surname and other name" to be given of every man who was on the 15th July in the English Act, but in this on the 20th, and—Up to the date of the return, an inhabitant occupier of any dwelling house in the second column.He wished to know what the meaning was of inserting in the Irish Bill a different day for the qualification to take effect from that in the English and Scotch Bills? It might be a mistake, and, if so, he hoped it would be rectified; but his contention with regard to these forms was that they were too complicated, and that the uneducated Irish voter would not find it easy to fill them up according to law. His hon. Friend the Member for Wicklow (Mr. W. J. Corbet) had shown him a form which he (Mr. W. J. Corbet) had filled up himself, and it was no easy matter to comprehend how such a form was to be filled up with strict accuracy. He was satisfied that a great many mistakes would be made; and he maintained that, unless there was a desire to see a great number of voters disfranchised, they must extend the scope of the forms, simply because in their present condition any man, however fairly and honestly he might desire to fill them up, would find it exceedingly difficult to do so. He complained, further, that the forms, although printed with the same object, were not uniform in substance; and he thought there ought to be a penalty subjecting any Clerk of the Union or other official who proceeded contrary to the Act to dismissal. It was of no use to say that the Clerk of the Union must do a certain thing unless they made the law effective by imposing a penalty.
§ THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. WALKER)pointed out that non-compliance with the forms would not disfranchise the voter or invalidate the election. The clause simply 1349 declared that the signature of the Revising Barrister to the Register should be conclusive evidence that the Register had been in all respects duly made and revised, at the time and in the manner prescribed by and in conformity with the law. The validity of the former would not depend upon anything it was the duty of the Clerk of the Union to provide for, but rather upon the machinery for obtaining the necessary information. He did not think any difficulty would arise from any informality in connection with the printed forms.
§ Motion agreed to.
§ Clause read a second time.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause be added to the Bill."
§ MR. HEALYexpressed a hope that the Government would issue stringent instructions to the Union officers. The letter of the Chief Secretary was very good as far as it went, but it did not go far enough. Would the Government take steps to inform the Poor Law officers in Ireland that they would be acting at their own peril if they refused to carry out the requirements of the Act?
§ THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. WALKER)said, that proper care would be taken to see that the law was carried out.
§ MR. SEXTONsaid, he should certainly press a clause for the dismissal of any Poor Law officer who acted contrary to the provisions of the Act.
§ MR. HEALYwished to point out that unless the agents of the National Party were allowed to see the rate-books in the present month of May, they might as well give up the fight. They had applied to the Clerk of the South Dublin Union for permission to look at the ratebook, but had been refused, although the privilege was at once conceded to the agents of the Conservative Party, even in the presence of the other side. He had those facts in his pocket in a sworn information. He thought, however, it would be better to deal with the matter in a new clause; but he wished to know what undertaking the Government would give that they would have the subject properly attended to, and would support the insertion in the Bill of some provision of this kind? All he asked was that equal facilities should 1350 be given to the agents of both political Parties.
§ MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANremarked, that if the hon. and learned Member should communicate to the Government the facts in his possession, they would be inquired into. He remembered some days ago receiving a mysterious telegram containing a number of statements which were perfectly unintelligible to him at the time, but which he had no doubt now related to the matter referred to by the hon. and learned Member. He would promise directly he was put in possession of the facts of the case to have them thoroughly inquired into.
§ MR. HEALYsaid, that was the third time a complaint had been made to the Government of practices of this kind in connection with the Dublin Unions—not in the time of the right hon. Gentleman the present Chief Secretary, but of his Predecessors. It was alleged that names were left out which ought to appear on the books. Chapter and verse had been given to the President of the Local Government Board in Ireland; but it was found impossible to obtain one single atom of satisfaction, and the Clerk of the South Dublin Union was still flourishing and carrying on his malpractices. He wished to know if the right hon. Gentleman would support a clause to prevent those practices in future? He had no wish unduly to trouble the right hon. Gentleman, because he knew the Government were anxious to get on with the Bill; but the right hon. Gentleman would perhaps allow him to read a short extract from a letter on this subject. It was from the County of Dublin Registration Association, and it stated that on Monday week two persons called upon the Clerk of the South Dublin Union and requested to see the Rathmines rate-book. They were told they could not have it, as he was using it himself, and they asked for another book, which they were allowed to see. On the following day they again asked for the Rathmines book, and were again refused, and upon asking when they would be permitted to see it, they were told "Not for a month at least." It was scarcely necessary to remind the Committee that to be of any service at all the rate-books must be examined in the month of May. The letter went on to say that the agents of the Association 1351 spent the two following days at the office of the Clerk of the Union examining other books under the impression that the one for Rathmines was not to be bad, when, much to their surprise, they saw two men from the Constitutional Club march into the room in which they were writing with the Rathmines book in their possession. Those circumstances required no commentary from him. He would only add that the National Party bad long been complaining of the conduct of the Clerk of the Union.
§ MR. LEWISsaid, the question now under the consideration of the Committee was whether a new clause should be added to the Bill, which provided that informalities in the registration should not affect the validity of the Register; but the hon. and learned Member had been calling attention to some alleged misconduct on the part of the Clerk of the South Dublin Union. He really did not see bow they were to make progress with the Bill if those digressions were to be allowed.
§ MR. HEALYcontended that his remarks were perfectly regular, seeing that one part of the clause was to provide that the Poor Rate collectors should assist the Clerk of the Union in carrying into effect the duties imposed on the Clerk by the Representation of the People Act of last year.
THE CHAIRMANI understood the hon. and learned Member for Monaghan (Mr. Healy) to put a question to the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant in regard to an alleged infringement of the principles of this clause. I see nothing irregular in that.
§ MR. HEALYsaid, be would not trouble the Committee further. His only object had been to impress upon the Chief Secretary the necessity of seeing that equal treatment was meted out to the agents of both political Parties in regard to the inspection of the rate books. If the right hon. Gentleman would make inquiry, he would find that the Constitutional Club obtained possession of the Rathmines rate-book, whereas the Clerk of the Union refused to allow the agents of the Dublin Registration Association to inspect it.
§ MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANsaid, he would inquire into the matter if the hon. and learned Member would give him the particulars.
§ MR. GIBSONremarked, that it ought to be known that the Clerk of the Union had important duties to perform, which required him to examine the rate-books himself.
§ MR. SEXTONsaid, the only comment he would make upon the remark of the right hon. and learned Gentleman was that the necessity for examining the rate-book himself did not account for the Clerk of the Union banding it over to the agents of one Party and refusing it to those of the other. The complaint was that both Parties were not treated alike, but that the rate-books bad been dealt with to the advantage of one side and the damage of the other. He would ask, as a matter of information, whether the Government could extend the period for the inspection of the rate-books, so that disfranchisement might not result from want of time?
§ THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. WALKER)said, that it was intended to extend the time by an additional six days; but be did not think it would be necessary to make provision for any further extension of time.
§ MR. P. J. POWERwished to point out that already some of the officials in the different Unions in Ireland bad taken action in the matter. A Board of Guardians with which he had some connection bad three weeks ago moved in the matter, and yet they told him that it might be impossible for them to comply with all the necessary formularies in the time fixed by the Act. And yet the Waterford Union stood in an exceptionally favourable position, seeing that they had already taken steps. Many other Unions had taken no steps whatever, and if those who bad moved already found it difficult to comply with the provisions of the law, it would be absolutely impossible for others less favourably situated to perfect the arrangements by the proper date. Under those circumstances, he hoped the suggestion of his hon. Friend the Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton) would receive the favourable consideration of Her Majesty's Government.
§ Motion agreed to.
§ Clause added to the Bill,
1353
§
MR. HEALY moved, in page 1, after Clause 1, to insert the following Clause:—
For the purposes of the household qualification created by 'The Representation of the People Act, 1884,' separate rating of a dwelling-house, or part of a dwelling-house, separately occupied, shall not be necessary to entitle the inhabitant occupier of same to be registered as a voter in respect thereof.
§ Clause brought up, and read the first time.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the said Clause be read a second time."
§ MR. GIBSONsaid, the proposal virtually amounted to an interpretation of an Act passed only a few months ago— the Representation of the People Act. He altogether protested against it, and would remind the Committee that it was not sought in the same way to interpret the Act so far as England and Scotland were concerned. He should be glad to learn what the Government intended to do in the matter?
§ THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. WALKER)said, the matter had been carefully considered in regard to Ireland. This law was only extended to that country by the Act of 1884. A doubt had been raised whether separate rating of a dwelling-house, or part of a dwelling-house, separately occupied, was necessary to entitle the inhabitant occupier to be registered, and after careful consideration the Government had come to the conclusion that such a doubt should not exist in Ireland. The question would be rendered quite clear by the insertion of this clause.
§ MR. GIBSONsaid, that by this clause they were dealing in a Registration Bill with a question altogether outside registration, and there was no similar clause either ill the English or the Scotch Act. He should certainly indicate his dissent from the adoption of the clause, although he would not say that he would put the Committee to the trouble of a division. It was, however, in the last degree unsatisfactory that a matter entirely outside the scope of registration should be illegitimately inserted in a Registration Bill. Whatever might be the merits of the clause, it had no right to find a place here.
MR. MACARTNEYpointed out that it was common in Ireland to have two 1354 habitations under the same roof, which were really separate residences of equal value. How would the clause apply to such a case? One of the occupiers might pay his rates, and then be made liable for the other.
§ MR. LEWISremarked, that the Representation of the People Act was either complete or it was not, and he could not believe that it was necessary to supplement in another and a distinct Bill the provisions of a measure passed so recently as three or four months ago. The present proposal virtually amounted to the insertion in a Registration Bill of an Interpretation Clause to the Representation of the People Bill.
§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir HENRY JAMES)concurred with the view which had been expressed by the Solicitor General for Ireland. The only object of the clause was to make the law perfectly clear, and to prevent future litigation.
§ MR. SEXTONsaid, the clause simply amounted to a declaration of the law upon a point that was now vague.
MR. MACARTNEYremarked, that what was desired in Ireland was that the law there should be assimilated to that of England and Scotland.
§ MR. LEWISsaid, the House had hitherto sheltered themselves under the ample folds of the Attorney General, who they believed to have been responsible for the drafting of the Representation of the People Bill. They now understood from the hon. and learned Gentleman that after all the labour which had been bestowed upon it by the House and the officials of the Government the provisions of that Bill were ambignous. He deeply regretted that announcement; but he thought it followed that for the sake of safety a similar provision should be inserted in the English Registration Bill. He protested against the attitude taken by the Government, and thought that it was most inconvenient to amend in a Registration Bill any defects in the Representation of the People Act of 1884.
§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir HENRY JAMES)said, that England and Ireland stood in a different position in regard to registration. The Act of 1878 applied to England and not to Ireland, and the object of this clause was simply to make it clear what the law was, so that no difficulty might 1355 arise when the Revising Barristers held their Courts.
§ Motion agreed to.
§ Clause read a second time, and aided to the Bill.
§ MR. HEALY moved, after Clause 2, to insert the following Clause:—
§ (Correction of list by Revising Barrister.)
§ "Where, on the revision of the list or lists of voters for any county, city, town, or borough in Ireland, the matter stated in a list or claim, or proved to the revising barrister in relation to any alleged right to be on any list, is, in the judgment of the revising barrister, insufficient in law to constitute a qualification of the nature or description stated or claimed, but sufficient in law to constitute a qualification of some other nature or description, the revising barrister, if the name is entered in a list for which such true qualification in law is appropriate, shall correct such entry by inserting such qualification accordingly, and, in any other case, shall insert the name with such qualification in the appropriate list, and shall expunge it from the other list, if any, in which it is entered."
§ Clause brought up, and read the first time.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the said Clause be read a second time."
§ THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. WALKER)said, this was a clause taken from the English Act of 1878, and the only question which arose was whether it was not desirable to add to the clause as it stood on the Paper Sub-section 13 of the English clause. He would suggest that that addition should be made.
§ Clause, as amended, read a second time, and added to the Bill.
§ MR. PARNELLsaid, he had intended to move the omission of Clause 6 for the purpose of proposing the insertion of a clause to remunerate Clerks of Unions and Poor Rate collectors for the duties imposed on them by the Registration Acts; but as the Government intended to bring up a clause dealing with the question, he would not move it.
§ MR. SMALL moved to amend Clause 5 by adding to the end of it words requiring the Town Councils or the Town Commissioners of the Irish boroughs to divide such boroughs into polling districts in the manner most convenient for taking the votes of elec- 1356 tors. The smallest of the nine boroughs left in Ireland would have at least 3,000 voters, and it would be very inconvenient indeed to have 3,000 voters polling at the same place. It was therefore advisable, he thought, to give to the Town Councils power to divide the boroughs into polling districts, either alphabetically—although that might, perhaps, be inconvenient—or otherwise.
§
New Clause:—
(Town Council and Commissioners may divide boroughs into polling districts.)
Not later than one month after the passing of this Act, the Town Council or Town Commissioners of each of the other boroughs in Ireland shall respectively take into consideration the division of the borough into polling districts, and shall respectively divide such borough into polling districts, in such manner as may be most convenient for taking the votes of electors, and in such manner that as nearly as possible an equal number of voters may be allotted to each polling district,"—(Mr. Small,")
—brought up, and read the first time.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the said Clause be read a second time."
§ THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. WALKER)said, the hon. Member would observe that in the Bill provision was made for the division, by the Town Councils, of the boroughs of Dublin and Belfast into wards. The reason of that was that those boroughs had already been divided, and, therefore, it was necessary to make provision for them. It was not considered necessary to make provision for the other boroughs; but as Dublin and Belfast were already divided it was necessary to provide for polling places there.
§ Motion agreed to.
§ Clause read a second time.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause be added to the Bill."
§ MR. GIBSONsaid, there seemed to have been some misconception with regard to this clause, as it had been read a second time, although the Solicitor General for Ireland opposed it as unnecessary.
§ Question put.
§ The Committee divided: — Ayes 29; Noes 80: Majority 51. — (Div. List, No. 146.)
1357§ MR. SMALLsaid, he would now move the second Amendment that stood in his name—namely, the insertion of a new clause after Clause 7, for the purpose of providing that—
The treasurers of the counties of Down and Armagh shall repay to the Town Commissioners of Newry such sums respectively as shall bear to the entire expenses of the revision of the voters' lists for the borough of Newry the same proportion as the number of electors of the borough qualifying out of premises outside the municipal boundary of Newry, in the counties of Down and Armagh, bear to the entire number of electors of the borough, and the Town Commissioners shall not be liable to contribute any sum towards the expenses of the revision of the voters' lists for the counties of Down and Armagh.It appeared to him that it would be only quite fair that the Town Commissioners of Newry should pay the cost of revising the list of voters as far as those voters were resident within the limits of the borough of Newry, and that it would be very unfair to call upon that body also to pay the expenses of revision in the case of those voters who resided outside the limits of the borough and in parts of the counties of Down and Armagh, and who contributed towards the taxation of those counties. The hon. and learned Member for Monaghan (Mr. Healy) had a similar proposition on the Paper with reference to the City of Dublin and the county adjacent, the question which arose in that case being exactly the same as that which had arisen in regard to the borough of Newry, except that Newry extended into two adjoining counties instead of one. If this clause were not accepted the town of Newry would not only have to pay the cost of the revision of the borough list of voters, but also a portion of the cost of revising the voters' lists for the two counties of Down and Armagh. That, he thought, would be an injustice to the ratepayers of Newry, and it was to remedy that injustice that he proposed the present Amendment. He had no reason to anticipate that the clause would meet with any opposition on the part of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant, inasmuch as it merely dealt with a state of affairs which ought never to have arisen. He hoped, therefore, the right hon. Gentleman would display a more generous spirit than to oppose the clause.
§
New Clause:—
The treasurers of the counties of Down and Armagh shall repay to the Town Commissioners of Newry such sums respectively as shall bear to the entire expenses of the revision of the voters' lists for the borough of Newry the same proportion as the number of electors of the borough qualifying out of premises outside the municipal boundary of Newry, in the counties of Down and Armagh, bear to the entire number of electors of the borough, and the Town Commissioners shall not be liable to contribute any sum towards the expenses of the revision of the voters' lists for the counties of Down and Armagh,"—(Mr. Small,)
—brought up, and read the first time.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the said Clause be read a second time."
§ MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANsaid, the case of Newry was one that had been very curious to deal with. It was not an analogous case to that of Pembroke, for while the borough of Newry ran into two different counties it did not, in so doing, present anything like a well-defined area. It was proposed that where the borough of Newry overlapped the counties of Down and Armagh, the Grand Juries of those two counties should provide for the cost of revising the voters' list; but at the same time the hon. Member, in making that proposal, had not stated out of what fund the money should come. It would no doubt be hard upon the borough of Newry to have to pay the expense of revision in the case of those voters who resided beyond the municipal limits; but it would be still harder to throw the cost on those who inhabited parts of baronies in the two counties, where the area was part of a county barony but also part of the borough of Newry. In such a case, the question was who ought to pay the expense of revision? Was it to be the inhabitants of the borough, or was it to be the inhabitants of the barony outside, who had nothing to do with the registration affecting the borough? It seemed to him that of the two propositions the more reasonable one would be to throw the expense on the inhabitants of the borough, because the borough would certainly have the benefit to be derived from the inclusion of the additional electors. With regard to the other proposal of the hon. Gentleman, he could not see what connection it had with this subject, and he did not think there was anything to be 1359 found in the Bill that would warrant an arrangement of the land proposed.
§ MR. SMALLsaid, he did not think the right hon. Gentleman fully understood the local bearings of the matter, and there could be little doubt that in the present instance there had been an oversight. The right hon. Gentleman had asked out of what fund the money was to be paid? The answer was, out of the general fund of the county, of course. The borough of Newry was quite willing to continue its liability with regard to anything within the municipal limits; but they asked the county to resume their original liability with regard to anything out of the municipal boundaries. All that was asked by this clause was a simple act of justice, and it was no part of the bargain that Newry should pay the expenses of revising lists of voters for those who resided outside the municipal boundaries. With regard to the second part of the question, he did not think the right hon. Gentleman could really be of opinion that it was quite fair that the borough of Newry should pay for the revision of the county lists.
MR. MACARTNEYsaid, as a Grand Juror for the county of Armagh, he believed he might state that a bargain was made between the town of Newry and the county of Armagh, in which specific conditions were laid down; and it was now proposed that those conditions should be got rid of by a side wind It seemed to him that such a proposition was most unfair. With regard to the question as to the difference in the expense being borne by the borough or the county, he thought it only right to point out, as a matter for the consideration of the Committee, that while there were a great many voters for the county of Armagh who resided in Newry, there were no voters for Newry who resided in the county of Armagh.
§ MR. HEALYsaid, the hon. Gentleman the Member for Tyrone (Mr. Maccartney) had ventured on a mere assumption of his own.
§ MR. HEALYsaid, the hon. Member was improving as he went on, 1360 and presently, in all probability, he would swear he remembered; but until the Committee had something better than the statement of the hon. Gentleman before them, he (Mr. Healy) should be very sorry to act upon it. He would, however, offer a suggestion which he hoped the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant would be prepared to accept. The Government had proposed to adopt a remedy in the case of Dublin which was very similar to that of Newry; but, as usual, they had not put the matter in an intelligible and practical shape. He had been about to draw the attention of the Government to this question, and to ask them to state what their proposals really were. He thought the Government ought to say at once that they would bring up a new clause, under which it should be provided that no one area should have imposed upon it the preparation of the list of voters belonging to any other area. Surely one set of people ought not to be called upon to bear the expense that ought to be de-frayed by another set of people. His hon. Friend the Member for Wexford (Mr. Small) was a member of the Town Council of Newry, and therefore understood the matter with which he proposed to deal; and he (Mr. Healy) felt well assured that unless there was much better evidence of a contract between the borough of Newry and the county of Armagh than the "I remember," or "I think I remember" of the hon. Member for Tyrone, that House would not be disposed to do what would really amount to the perpetration of an injustice towards the borough of Newry. The Government, ought, therefore, to say definitely that one area should not have a claim to make charges of this sort on another area, involving financial relations of a character which he could not understand.
§ MR. LEWISsaid, it seemed to him that the Government ought to deal with questions of this kind, instead of leaving them to be dealt with by Amendments and proposals from all parts of the House. It was for the Government to take the responsibility in regard to those things upon themselves, and they ought to satisfy themselves before the Report as to what ought really be done. But, instead of taking those matters entirely under their own 1361 charge, the Government accepted all sorts of Amendments moved by individual Members. That was a most unsatisfactory way of doing business, and he should oppose the Amendment on that ground.
§ MR. SEXTONsaid, he did not propose to supplement the arguments that had been brought forward in reference to the case of Newry; but he desired to point out that with regard to the case of Dublin the grievance was undeniable and required a remedy.
§ MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANsaid, there was a proposal on the Paper dealing with the matter referred to by the hon. Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton).
MR. MACARTNEYsubmitted that instead of proposing the clause as it stood the hon. Member for Wexford ought to propose an Amendment providing that the Town Commissioners of Newry should not be liable for any revision expenses in connection with the adjoining counties.
§ MR. HEALYsaid, that was what the clause proposed. He wished to ask the Solicitor General for Ireland whether he would, on the Report, bring up an omnibus clause that would deal fairly with the whole question?
§ THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. WALKER)said, in his opinion, the cases of Black Rock and Pembroke were quite different.
§ MR. GIBSONventured to say that the question under discussion was not a matter of controversy as affecting one side of the House and the other; and they appeared all anxious to do the best they could in regard to it. He understood that some statement had been made to the effect that there might have been a contract on the subject as between the borough of Newry and the adjoining counties. He did not know how far that was so, but, at any rate, they had heard the arguments used on behalf of the borough; and, on the other hand, the other areas that would be affected had a right to be heard, and as the matter was not one of controversy, but one that might be settled between then and the Report in a peaceful way, he would suggest that the clause should be withdrawn, that the treasurers of the counties of Down and Armagh, who understood the question, should be consulted, and that, after it had been thoroughly investigated and a fuller knowledge of 1362 its merits arrived at, the Government should deal with it on Report.
§ MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANsaid, he had no objection to the adoption of the course suggested by the right hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Gibson). The only objection he could see was that the area outside the municipal boundary of Newry was not a very well arranged area in itself.
§ MR. SMALLsaid, he was willing to accept the suggestion of the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Gibson) and to withdraw his Amendment with the intention of bringing it up again on the Report stage, on the understanding that the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary would consider the matter in the meantime.
§ Clause, by leave, withdrawn
§ MR. GIBSONsaid, he had upon the Paper a clause intended to enable the Lord Lieutenant, with the consent of the Treasury, to grant to the County Court Judges such remuneration and assistance for the first sitting for the registry of voters after the passing of this Bill as might be deemed just; but he found that he was unable to move it. He hoped, however, that the Government would take care that the duties of the County Court Judges should not be substantially infringed, and would modify their labours as much as possible by availing themselves of the powers already given for the appointment of a sufficient number of Revising Barristers to obviate any difficulty that might otherwise be experienced.
§ MR. T. A. DICKSONsaid, he had now to move the clause which stood on the Paper in his name. The clause was one that dealt solely with frivolous objections to voters, and the point involved had already been fully debated in that House. He thought that the existing state of the Law of Registration in Ireland had been well and truly described by the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary, when he had said a worse system of registration it would be impossible to find, inasmuch as by its operation in that country, particularly in regard to the number of frivolous objections, thousands of men were deprived of their 1363 rights of citizenship. As the law at present stood, instead of affording facilities to claimants to be put upon the lists of voters, it placed every obstacle in the way of their getting on the Register. The result was that in the Irish Registration Courts claimants attended, day after day, for the purpose of sustaining their claims until they became wearied out and gave up the attempt in disgust, and either went back to their homes, or, as the hon. and learned Member for Monaghan (Mr. Healy) had stated, were absent from the Court at the time their names were called, and thus were struck out of the list, without any means of obtaining redress. Thus, after having waited for several days, and incurring considerable expense, they failed entirely in their object, and went home in disgust. It was pretty well known that for a man to get his name on the Register in Ireland was almost an impossibility and the next thing to a miracle, and any man who wanted to look after his business, and who did not mix himself up in politics, would not attend the Revision Courts and subject himself to all the trouble and worry thereby entailed. The consequence was that the hired and paid objector had only to invest a few shillings in postage stamps, and to send out notices of objection broadcast, and his object was secured, because the persons objected to, although their names might have been passed by the collectors and Clerks of the Peace, would not put themselves to the expense and trouble of attending the Courts for the purpose of substantiating their claims. That House had recently passed a measure designed to enfranchise the Irish people; but unless an amendment of the law as to registration were made so as to put a barrier in the way of frivolous objections, the people of Ireland would not obtain that measure of enfranchisement which it was the object of the Representation of the People Bill to confer. He contended that it was the duty of the Government to give the people it was intended to enfranchise every opportunity of being put upon the Register. The main feature in the clause he now moved was that the ground or grounds of objection should be specifically stated in the notice of objection, and it was also proposed that no person objected to should be required to give evidence in support 1364 of his claim otherwise than in regard to the points of objection specified in the notice; but this was not a part of the question immediately before the Committee. He appealed to hon. Gentlemen opposite to assist the Committee in the endeavour to put an end to the frivolous objections against which the clause was directed, and he hoped the clause would meet with acceptance at the hands of Her Majesty's Government.
§ New Clause:—
§ Prevention of frivolous Objections.
§
(Notices of objection shall state grounds of objection. See 28 and 29 Vic. c. 36, s. 6.)
Any notice of objection given under sections twenty-six or thirty-six of 'The Parliamentary Voters (Ireland) Act, 1850,' to any person on any list of claimants may be given according to the provisions of either of those sections respectively; but, with that exception, no notice of objection given under the said Act to any person upon any list of voters shall be valid unless the ground or grounds of objection be specifically stated therein; and this provision shall be deemed to be sufficiently satisfied by naming the column or columns of the register on which the objector grounds his objection, and any objection grounded upon any one of the said columns shall be deemed a separate ground of objection, and such notice may be according to the form in the Schedule to this Act annexed, or to the like effect, in substitution for the forms numbered (12) in Schedule (A) and (15) in Schedule (B) respectively to 'The Parliamentary Voters (Ireland) Act, 1850,'"—(Mr. T. A. Dickson,)
—brought up, and read the first time.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the said Clause be read a second time."
§ MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANexpressed his assent to the clause, and reminded the Committee that the clauses put on the Paper by the hon. Member (Mr. T. A. Dickson) had been embodied by the Government in a Bill that had left that House two years ago.
§ MR. LEWISsaid, these new clauses offered another illustration of the practice by which the Government fathered Amendments without taking upon themselves the responsibility of proposing them. The assumption was that these clauses were to assimilate the law of Ireland with that of England; but the assumption could hardly be made good, because the Government had already assented to an Amendment to this Bill with regard to the receipt of medical relief that made a wide difference between the law of Ireland and that which 1365 was retained in England. The clause now under consideration went far beyond anything that prevailed in England. It was only with regard to county voters that there was any such requirement in the English law, and the reason was that when they were dealing with county votes all sorts of questions as to freeholds and so forth arose. With regard to borough votes, however, the case was more simple, and the questions arising were of a very different order. He thought that that was a remarkable instance of the Government allowing other persons to do what ought to be their business. That being a Government Bill, the House ought to have the benefit of the Government responsibility in regard to important proposals, which ought to be brought forward by their Law Officers instead of being left in the hands of private Members. The effect of this clause if carried would be to run far ahead of the law of England by requiring in the case of boroughs that all notices of objection should set forth the different grounds of objection. The Act of 1878, no doubt, was the Act which regulated the registration in boroughs. He had searched through the clauses in the endeavour to discover anything which required the grounds of objection to be stated, and had failed in his attempt. He thought, therefore, that this was inapplicable to boroughs, at any rate, though there was no ground for it in the counties.
§ DR. LYONSsaid, he wished to endorse the observations which had fallen from the hon. Member for Tyrone (Mr. T. A. Dickson). On a former occasion when the subject was under consideration he had mentioned a remarkable fact in connection with himself. For 10 years, owing to frivolous objections, he had never been able to get his name upon the Register of the county of Dublin. He had never been able to attend personally, and in consequence of that fact and other circumstances he had never been put on the Register.
§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir HENRY JAMES)pointed out that the clause proposed would make the law of England and Ireland identical, as would be seen on reference to Clause 26 of the Act of 1878. That clause required that in the notice to be given in the case of borough voters the objection should be stated specifically.
§ MR. HEALYsaid, that on a former occasion he remembered the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Gibson) making some remark as to this system of objection. The right hon. and learned Gentleman had pointed out that this proposal left too much power in the hands of the officials, and he (Mr. Healy) was to a certain extent inclined to agree with him, and if the right hon. and learned Gentleman brought forward any Amendment for the purpose of providing that Union officials who corruptly discharged their duties should be punished, he (Mr. Healy) would be glad to support him. He thought that a clause of this kind, which gave power to Union officers to put on the Register whomsoever they liked, ought to be tempered with some penal provision to the effect that, if it was found—as had been found in the case of the South Dublin Union—that people were put on the list who were never in the district at all, the officers who were guilty of such misrepresentation should be heavily punished. The Committee was familiar with what had occurred in the South Dublin Union—names had been put on the Register fraudulently, and it could not be for a moment contended that it happened from accident. He confessed that, whatever might have been the state of the case previously, he (Mr. Healy) was not so enthusiastic as to this provision as he was two or three years ago; in fact, he had been not ungrateful to the House of Lords for having rejected the Bill in 1883. He believed it would have been impossible for them to have worked the County Dublin had the House of Lords passed it. In his own case in the county of Monaghan the Register would have been against him under the £12 franchise if this clause had been carried. He certainly viewed with apprehension this power given to the Union officials in Ireland to make themselves Returning Officers in counties and boroughs unless some severe penalty were provided for fraudulent entries. As to one detail of this clause, it would prevent frivolous objections to voters, but it did nothing to prevent frivolous objections in the case of claimants. Yet the next proviso was that all "persons"—claimants as well as voters—should not be required to give evidence except in so far as such 1367 right was called specifically in question by the notice of objection. That appeared to him to be somewhat extraordinary, and he would ask the hon. and learned Gentleman the Solicitor General for Ireland as to this point, whether this was not inconsistent?
§ MR. T. A. DICKSONsaid, that having seen the Registration Act worked, he might say that when a man was put upon the voters' list, he could not be struck off unless evidence were given that he had no qualification; but when a man was on the claimants' list, he then had to prove his possession of a qualification, and that made all the difference. A man could not be struck off unless substantial proof were given in Court that he had lost his qualification.
§ MR. CALLANasked, how the hon. Member would deal with the supplementary lists, which were most important?
§ MR. T. A. DICKSONThey are lists of claimants.
§ MR. CALLANsaid, they were not; and that showed how little the county Members understood this question. The claimants' lists and the supplementary lists were quite different. The rule in Ireland was that if a man was on the electoral list he could not be displaced unless it were proved that he had lost his qualification. A claimant could be obliged to prove his claim; but there was another important list—namely, that which was called the supplementary list—a list of those whose names were brought forward for the first time, who had not been electors in the previous year, and who were obliged, even if there were no objection lodged against them and even though they were on the list of poor-rate payers, to prove their claim. Vexatious objections might be raised to that list, and the onus of proof should be on the objector, and not upon the person who was not a claimant, but had been put upon the list by the rate collector. His (Mr. Callan's) contention was that, unless there were objections raised to those persons being put upon the list, they should be put on as a matter of course.
§ MR. H. G. ALLENsaid, that the law really was this—and it had been found a very salutary one—that those who came as claimants to be placed upon the list for the first time, never having been on it before, were required, in answer to 1368 an objection made generally, to prove their title. After that, any objection made against them must include substantially the specific grounds of objection. When a man had once got upon the Register, it required a very strong case to strike him off. The Amendment before the Committee would assimilate the law of Ireland upon this subject to that of England, and he had much pleasure in supporting it.
§ MR. FINDLATERsaid, that he could speak from experience of the necessity of making perfectly sure that, when an objection was taken to a name of a voter being placed upon the list, the person raising the objection should be subjected to the payment of costs.
§ MR. GIBSONsaid, he objected to the scheme and scope of this Bill being diverted from what it was stated it was to be by the Prime Minister and those who were responsible for the Registration Bills. They had been told that Registration Bills would be introduced for the three countries to apply the existing registration machinery to the electorate manufactured by the Reform Bill. It was not the intention stated by the Prime Minister and the Government, and it was not in accordance with common sense that in the Bill relating to one of the three countries the opportunity should be taken of not only in-introducing a machinery registration measure, but also a Reform Registration Bill. The clauses now under discussion were really Reform Registration Clauses, and were, therefore, outside the scope of what the Bill should be. With regard to what had been said by the hon. Member for Monaghan (Mr. Findlater) and his hon. and learned Colleague who sat upon the Opposition side of the House (Mr. Healy), so far as he (Mr. Gibson) could see, the clauses of the hon. Member for Tyrone (Mr. T. A. Dickson) did provide that as to objections taken to names already on the voters' list, those objections should be specific and detailed. That was the way he (Mr. Gibson) took it; he was sure the hon. and learned Gentleman the Solicitor General for Ireland had considered the matter, and had put his own construction on it. The proper reading was that the notice of objection having been given, all the grounds of objection should be specifically and plainly stated. Both Members for Monaghan seemed to 1369 desire that, and therefore he would not take objection to it.
§ MR. CALLANasked, whether in the proposed new clause any distinction had been made between the list of claimants and what was called the supplementary list? The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Gibson) appeared to be ignorant on that subject.
§ MR. GIBSONOh, no; I understand it perfectly well.
§ MR. CALLANsaid, that the right hon. and learned Gentleman was perfectly familiar with the point, and what he (Mr. Callan) said was that the right hon. and learned Gentleman appeared to be ignorant. In Ireland there were three lists published. First, that of the people whose names were on the Register for the preceding year; and if any objections to the voters whose names had appeared on that list were taken, it was necessary for the objectors to show that the voters had lost their qualification before they could be displaced. But then there was the supplementary list, which was a primâ facie list of those entitled to be on the Register. Supposing a man died and his son who inherited his name was put on, or supposing a man inherited or was entitled to be put on by marriage, his name was put on that list. The name of such person would be put on the Register without any proof whatever, and the person would become an elector unless his claim was disproved. But if he received a notice of objection three months before the month of October, the onus was put upon him to come forward and prove his claim. The result was that whenever any voter in Ireland died, or any of his connections from whom he inherited, a three-fold objection was made against him, and he was compelled to come and uphold his right. That list was very different to the list of claimants—so essentially different that he should not like to vote with the hon. and learned Member for Monaghan on the question of claimants. On all matters affecting Party in Ireland the Conservatives were able to use an elaborate and efficient organization, and to lodge a number of objections to the supplementary list. Every name that appeared on the supplementary list was objected to, in the hope that the person would not be able to prove his claim. In that 1370 manner the hon. Member for Belfast (Mr. Corry) and others of his class succeeded in striking from the Register in Belfast and other places, for their own purpose, the names of a great many artizans. The supplementary list was only a list of those who, by marriage, inheritance, and so on, came upon the list; and he (Mr. Callan) would ask the hon. and learned Gentleman the Solicitor General for Ireland to place his foot down and say that those who came on the supplementary list should be placed in the same position as those who were already on the list of voters. He would ask the hon. and learned Gentleman to express his view upon this matter. The list of the Clerks of Unions should be taken as a primâ facie proof of a man's title to the franchise.
§ THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. WALKER.)said, that anyone who had studied the Act of 1850 would know that it included those persons on the Register of the previous year and on the supplemental list.
§ MR. HEALYsaid, he did not pretend to understand this matter; he thought that any voter should have a right to object to a perfectly new claimant who had not been on the list before without being obliged to serve notice of objection. He would allow anyone in Court to object. As it was, all three Parties, the Liberals, the Conservatives, and the Nationalists, objected, each being obliged to throw away a 3d. stamp. Why should they not allow anyone to object —why throw away those 3d. stamps? It only gave the Revising Barristers more work to do. Claimants were bound to be objected to in that roundabout way, because, unless objection had been previously taken, it was not possible to put a question to them in Court. If the Solicitor General for Ireland would refer to the fifth line of the Amendment of the hon. Member for Tyrone (Mr. T. A. Dickson), he would observe these words—
But, with that exception, no notice of objection given under the said Act to any person upon any list of voters shall be valid unless the ground or grounds of objection he specifically stated therein.But later on they intended to provide that objections against all "persons." that was claimants included, should state the grounds of objection. With regard to the first part of the provision, 1371 he would suggest, as he had already stated, that anyone should have the right primâ facie to object to the claim of a person to be put on the Register without it being necessary to provide these 3d. stamps. If that were not done, people would object to a claimant without knowing anything about the matter, simply to be on the safe side and to assist the Revising Barrister in doing his duty.
§ MR. CALLANasked how the hon. Member for Tyrone (Mr. T. A. Dickson) proposed to deal with voters on the supplementary list to whom objection might be taken? Would those persons whose names were in the voters' list of another Union stand in the same valid position as they did in the voters' list of the previous year?
§ SIR JOSEPH M'KENNAsaid, the supplementary list might be shortly described as a record for the use of the Clerk of the Union of persons debarred from voting for one cause or another. He wanted those persons who appeared on the supplementary list to be protected in the same way as the voters on the previous Register were protected.
§ THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. WALKER)suggested that the clause should be allowed to pass, and that the hon. and learned Member for Monaghan (Mr. Healy) or the hon. Member for Louth (Mr. Callan) should raise their objection to it, if they had any to raise, on the Report stage.
§ MR. CALLANsaid, he did not raise any objection whatever to the clause. As a matter of fact, he had always objected to the supplementary list. He objected to the supplementary list in his own county; he objected to the name of anyone who was unfavourable to him, and thereby put him on the proof. He regarded it as a most unfair thing; but, at the same time, it was a facility afforded him by the law as it now existed. He wanted to do away with that; and he remarked that however objectionable it might be when it was a question of 200 or 300 names, it would be far more so when there were 2,000 or 3,000 to deal with. There were two official lists published, and he wanted to call the attention of the Solicitor General for Ireland to this fact. One was the official list of the voters of the previous year. For instance, if an election took 1372 place this year there would be the official list published of persons on the Register for 1885; that was sent to the Clerks of the Unions in the month of July, and that person put objections against the names of persons on various grounds. Then there was what was called the supplementary list, which contained the names of persons entitled since the previous year to be on the Register; that was dealt with by the Clerk of the Union in the same manner as the ordinary list. In the case of objection being raised to anyone on that list, he must prove his right to vote; whereas he (Mr. Callan) contended that the onus of proof ought to be placed on the objector. He thought that common sense demanded that a change should be made in this matter.
§ Motion agreed to.
§ Clause read a second time, and added to the Bill.
§
New Clause:—
(Costs to be awarded not to exceed £5. 28 and 29 Vic. c. 36, s. 14. 13 and 14 Vic. c. 69, s. 62.)
The sum ordered to be paid by way of costs shall not upon any one vote exceed the sum of live pounds, and the sixty-second section of 'The Parliamentary Voters (Ireland) Act, 1850, shall be read as if the words five pounds had been substituted therein for the words 'twenty shillings,'"— (Mr. T. A. Dickson,)
—brought up, and read the first time.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the said Clause be read a second time."
§ MR. HEALYsuggested that the clause should not be put in this form so far as the present Motion was concerned. It would be better that the clause should be put as far as the words "five pounds" in the second line.
§ Motion agreed to.
§ Clause read a second time, and added to the Bill.
§
New Clause:—
(Proceedings on objections. 13 and 14 Vic. c. 69, s. 55. 41 and 42 Vic. e. 26, s. 28.)
Notwithstanding anything to the contrary contained in 'The Parliamentary Voters (Ireland) Act, 1850,' where any person whose name is on any list of voters for a county, city, town, or borough (not being a list of claimants), is duly objected to by some person other than the clerk of the peace, the clerk of the union, the poor rate collector, or the town clerk, the county court judge, chairman, or revising bar-
1373
rister, whether the person objected to does or does not appear before him, shall, before requiring it to be proved that the person objected to is entitled to have his name inserted in the list of voters for such county, city, town, or borough, or expunging such name, require prima facie proof to be given to his satisfaction of some ground of objection against such person, and, for the purpose of determining whether such prima facie proof is satisfactory, shall examine the collectors of poor rates, clerk of the union, or any other person who may be present, touching the truth of the alleged ground of objection, and if such prima facie proof is not so given to his satisfaction, he shall retain the name of the person objected to in the list of voters,"—(Mr. T.A. Dickson,)
—brought up, and read the first and second time.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause be added to the Bill."
§ MR. LEWISsaid, that this provision was meant to apply to persons who would now come upon the list for the first time as well as to old voters. It was capable of so much misuse that he proposed to add to the clause an Amendment to the effect that the section should not apply to any objection where the person objected to was on the list of voters in respect of a qualification for which he should not have been registered on the list of voters for the present year. It was necessary that there should be a clear line of demarcation between the old list and the new with regard to the costs of objections. As to the form that had to be handed in by occupiers relating to sub-tenants, he did not believe that one Member of the House out of 50 could of his own motion fill it up properly; anything more technical or misleading to be placed in the hands of persons deficient in ordinary intelligence and experience could not be conceived. It would be in the recollection of the Committee that the question as to what constituted a dwelling-house had been raised in the Courts of Law, and that the decision had ultimately turned on whether the chief occupier or landlord resided on the premises or not. This form then assumed that the person was acquainted with an abstruse point of law, and the result must be that vast numbers of those forms would be filled up ignorantly, and a great number of them improperly. He believed that persons would be put on who might have been in occupation only a week, and many who were not in oc- 1374 cupation of a dwelling-house at all. His Amendment was to prevent manipulation, either by ignorance or fraud, by enacting that the stringent provision that the objectors should prove their objection primâ facie should not apply the first time a name appeared on the list. He believed that it would be obvious to the Committee that it was desirable that that addition should be made, and he could see no reasonable objection to it, because it was hostile to the interests of no Party. His contention was that the onus should not be shifted, and that it was fair that it should remain where it was at present in the case of new voters.
§
Amendment proposed to the proposed new Clause, at end, add—
But this section shall not apply to any objection where the person objected to is on the list of voters in respect of a qualification for which he shall not have been registered on the list of voters for the present year."—(Mr. Lewis.)
§ THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. WALKER)said, the Amendment would nullify what the Committee had already agreed to, and he could not, therefore, agree to it.
§ Amendment uegatived.
§ Clause added to the Bill.
§
New Clause:—
(Power of revising barrister to summon witnesses.)
A revising barrister may by summons under his hand require any person to attend at the court and give evidence or produce documents for the purpose of the revision, and any person who, after the tender to him of a reasonable amount for his expenses, fails so to attend, or who fails to answer any question put to him by the revising barrister in pursuance of this section, or to produce any document which he is required in pursuance of this section to produce, shall be liable to pay a fine not exceeding five pounds and not less than twenty shillings. Such fine may be imposed by the revising barrister at his discretion, and may be recovered in the same manner as any other fine imposed by 'The Parliamentary Registration (Ireland) Act, 1850, is now by law recoverable,"—(Mr. Healy,)
—brought up, and read the first time.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the said Clause be read a second time."
§ THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. WALKER)said, that the contingency contemplated by the hon. and learned Member was suffi- 1375 ciently provided for by the 56th section of the Act of 1850. He did not think, therefore, that the clause was necessary, and he suggested to the hon. and learned Member that it should not be pressed.
§ MR. T. A. DICKSONsaid, as a matter of fact, when a County Court Judge summoned a witness, and he did not attend, no further steps were taken. Dozens of cases of that kind occurred; and the Judge would not compel the witnesses to attend. If notice was issued, he thought that they ought to be compelled to attend.
§ MR. HEALYpointed out that, as the matter now stood, a witness who happened to be hostile had only to get up when he liked and walk out of Court.
§ MR. T. P. O'CONNORasked why, if, as the Solicitor General for Ireland had stated, this was provided for in the Act of 1850, it was necessary to provide for it again in the English Act of 1870?
§ SIR JOSEPH M'KENNAsaid, he could see no possible objection to repeating in the Irish Act what was already in the English Act.
§ THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. WALKER)said, he would not press his objection to the Amendment.
§ Motion agreed to.
§ Clause read a second time, and added to the Bill.
§
New Clause:—
(Costs of appeal.)
The costs of an appellant against a decision of a revising barrister may, if the appeal is successful, be ordered by the court hearing the appeal to be paid by the clerk of the peace or town clerk named as respondent in the said appeal, whether he shall or shall not appear before the said court in support of the decision.
For enabling an appellant to obtain such an order he may, at or before the time of making his declaration of appeal under section fifty-eight of 'The Parliamentary Registration (Ireland) Act, 1850,' require the revising barrister to name the clerk of the peace for the county, or the town clerk for the parliamentary borough or municipal borough, as the case may be, to which the appeal relates, to be respondent in the appeal.
The revising barrister if so required shall, and in any case may, name such clerk of the peace or town clerk, as the case may be, to be respondent in an appeal, either alone or in addition to any other person referred to in section fifty-nine of 'The Parliamentary Registration (Ireland) Act, 1850.'
1376
The expenses properly incurred by a clerk of the peace or town clerk as respondent, including any costs which he may be ordered to pay to the appellant in any such appeal, shall be allowed to him as part of the expenses incurred by him in respect of the revision of the list to which the appeal relates. The costs of an appeal against the decision of a revising barrister shall be in the discretion of the court hearing the appeal,"—(Mr. Healy,)
—brought up, and read the first time.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed. "That the said Clause be read a second time."
§ Motion agreed to.
§ Clause added to the Bill.
§
New Clause:—
(Rate-books may be amended.)
The board of guardians of any poor law union may from time to time amend any rate made for such union by virtue of the Acts for the relief of the destitute poor in Ireland, by inserting in the rate-book the name of any person claiming and entitled to have his name therein as owner or occupier, or by inserting therein the name of any person who ought to have been rated, or by striking out the name of any person who ought not to have been rated, or by raising or reducing the sum at which any person has been rated, if it appears to the board that such person has been underrated or over-rated through clerical errors, or by making such other amendments therein as will make such rate conformable to the said Acts; and no such amendment shall be held to avoid the rate: Provided always, That every person aggrieved by any such alteration shall have the same right of appeal there from as he would have had if his name had been originally inserted in such rate, and no such alteration had been made; and as respects any such person the rates shall be considered to have been made at the time when he recived notice of such alteration, and every person whose rates are altered shall be entitled to seven days' notice of such alteration before the rate shall be payable by him,"—(Mr. Healy,)
—brought up, and read the first time.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the said Clause be read a second time."
§ THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. WALKER)said, he did not think this clause was germane to the subject of registration.
§ MR. HEALYsaid, he appealed to to the hon. and learned Gentleman to consider this Amendment in a fair spirit. It was not a matter that had anything to do with Party considerations; he might call it an all-round matter. If a wrong existed, as was admitted, now was the time to amend it; and that was what his clause was in- 1377 tended to do. There was no power invested in the Board of Guardians to make the alterations in question, and as he had shown that no Party considerations were involved, he hoped he should receive the support of the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Gibson) and the hon. Member for Londonderry (Mr. Lewis).
§ MR. GIBSONsaid, he was utterly at a loss to know why his name should be dragged into the discussion on every Amendment relating to those matters. It was always the same; whether he spoke, or whether he was silent. It was said he agreed to this, and did not agree to that, even when he had never opened his lips on any matter. However, looking at this question, he was inclined to agree with the Solicitor General for Ireland that the Amendment was not in the slightest degree germane to a Registration Bill. It might be open to examination and discussion if it were brought forward on a Rating Bill; but he was bound to say that his hon. and learned Friend was justified in taking objection to the introduction of the Amendment on such a Bill as the present, and that objection he felt bound to support.
§ MR. HEALYsaid, he would not press the Amendment, but would ask why a Bating Bill was not introduced, seeing that it was admitted that his Amendment was germane to a Rating Bill?
§ Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
§
New Clause:—
(Duties and powers of court of revision.)
The court shall, with respect to the lists of Parliamentary voters which it is appointed to revise, perform the duties and have the powers following:
(1.) It shall correct any mistake which is proved to have been made in any list;
(2.) It may correct any mistake which is proved to have been made in any claim or notice of objection;
(3.) It shall expunge the name of every person, whether objected to or not, whose qualification as stated in any list is insufficient in law to entitle such person to be included therein;
(4.) It shall expunge the name of every person who, whether objected to or not, is proved to be dead;
(5.) It shall expunge the name of every person, whether objected to or not, whose name or place of abode, or the nature of whoso qualification, or the name or situation of whoso qualifying property if the qualification is in respect of property, or any other particulars
1378
respecting whom by law required to be stated in the list, is or are either wholly omitted or in the judgment of the revising barrister insufficiently described for the purpose of being identified, unless the matter or matters so omitted or insufficiently described be supplied to the satisfaction of the court before it shall have completed the revision of the list in which the omission or insufficient description occurs, and in case such matter or matters shall be so supplied the court shall then and there insert the same in such list;
(6.) It shall expunge the name of every person, whether objected to or not, where it is proved to the revising barrister that such person was, on the twentieth day of July then next preceding, incapacitated by any law or statute from voting;
(7.) Before expunging from a list the name of any person not objected to, the court shall cause such notice, if any, as shall appear necessary or proper under the circumstances of the proposal to expunge the name to be given to or loft at the usual or last known place of abode of such person;
(8.) Subject as herein and otherwise by law provided, the court shall retain the name of every person not objected to, and also of every person objected to, unless the objector appears by himself or by some person on his behalf in support of his objection;
(9.) If any objector other than the clerk of the peace, town clerk, or a clerk of union, or collector-general, so appears, the court of revision shall require him to prove that he gave the notice or notices of objection required by law to be given by him, and to give prima facie proof of the ground of objection, and for that purpose may examine and allow the objector to examine any clerk of union, collector-general, or other collector of rates, or any other person on oath touching the alleged ground of objection, and unless such proof is given to the satisfaction of the court, the court shall, subject as herein and otherwise by law provided, retain the name of the person objected to;
An objection made under this Act by a clerk of union, collector-general, town clerk, or clerk of the peace, shall be deemed to cast upon the person objected to the burden of proving his right to be on the list;
The primâ facie proof shall be deemed to be given by the objector if it is shown to the satisfaction of the court by evidence, repute, or otherwise that there is reasonable ground for believing that the objection is well founded, and that by reason of the person objected to not being present for examination, or for some other reason, the objector is prevented from discovering or proving the truth respecting the entry objected to;
(10.) If such proof is given by the objector as herein prescribed, or if the objection is by a clerk of union, collector-general, town clerk, or clerk of the peace, then unless the person objected to appears by himself or by some person on his behalf, and proves that he was entitled on the twentieth day of July then next preceding to have his name inserted in the list in respect of the qualification described in such list, the court of revision shall expunge the name of the person objected to,"—(Mr. Mealy,)
—brought up, and read the first time.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the said Clause be read a second time."
§ THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. WALKER)said, there was some redundance in the clause, which, however, might be corrected on the Report.
§ MR. LEWISsaid, the hon. and learned Gentleman the Solicitor General for Ireland seemed unable to understand his (Mr. Lewis's) objection. If the hon. and learned Gentleman would turn to Sub-section 9, he would there find that primâfacie proof was required. They had passed upon the Motion of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Tyrone (Mr. T. A. Dickson) that the objector was bound to give some primâ facie evidence of the ground of objection, otherwise the objection would not be allowed to be gone into. That was the same subject-matter which was proposed to be dealt with by Sub-section 9. He did not know whether the Government would like to have in the same Act of Parliament two clauses dealing in different language with the same subject-matter.
§ Motion agreed to.
§ Clause read a second time.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause be added to the Bill."
§ MR. LEWISwould like to hear what the Solicitor General for Ireland had to say about Sub-section 9.
§ THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. WALKER)said, that there was, perhaps, some resemblance in the wording of the two sections; but it occurred to him that that might be cured on Report.
§ Motion agreed to.
§ Clause added to the Bill.
§ (Objections not to lapse by death of objector.)
§ "Any objection by a qualified objector may after his death be revived by any other person qualified to have made the objection originally by a notice to that effect in writing signed by him and given to the clerk of the peace or town clerk at or before the time of revision of the entry to which the objection relates."
§ Clause brought up, read the first and second time, and added to the Bill,
1380§ MR. HEALYproposed the following new clause:—
(Dates for lodgers' qualifications.)In the construction of the fourth section of 'The Representation of the People (Ireland) Act, 1868,' and the enactments amending or affecting the same, the first day of July shall be substituted for the twentieth day of July.The hon. and learned Gentleman said, this clause dealt with a very curious matter, which must, of course, have been brought under the notice of the Solicitor General for Ireland. At the present time, lodgers in Ireland were required to declare on the 14th of July that they were in occupation of their lodgings on the 20th of July. Now, that was absurd, and ought to be remedied.
§ Clause brought up, and read the first time.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the said Clause be read a second time."
§ THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. WALKER)suggested that the Motion should be withdrawn, and that the hon. and learned Gentleman should confer with him with the view of a clause being prepared by Report.
§ MR. HEALYthought that the 20th of July would be a better day; but the 20th of July would not give sufficient time, in his judgment, for the preparation of the list. He would, however, ask leave to withdraw the clause.
§ Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
§
MR. HEALY moved the following new clause:—
(Objections to claim lists.)
Every registered voter or person whose name appears on the list of voters shall be entitled, without giving any notice of objection, to oppose the claim of every person claiming to be inserted in the list of voters in the same manner, and with the same rights and liabilities, as if such registered voter or person had given due notice of objection. For the purposes of this section no list of voters shall be deemed to include any list of claimants.
The hon. and learned Gentleman said, he certainly moved this clause with a great deal of hesitation, because any Amendment with regard to objections coming from one side of the House appeared rather odd. If the Government liked to accept it, he would be quite prepared to press it.
§ Clause brought up, and read the first time.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the said Clause be read a second time."
§ MR. LEWISsaid, that if the clause were accepted, it would be quite possible for persons to be struck off the list without their knowing anything about it. He certainly thought that a person should receive notice that his name was to be objected to.
§ Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
§ MR. HEALYproposed the following new clause: —
For the preparation of the voters lists in the City of Dublin, the Commissioners of the townships of Pembroke and Blackrock shall repay to the treasurer of the Corporation of Dublin the expense of making out the lists for such portion of these townships as are situate within the Parliamentary borough of Dublin.The hon. and learned Gentleman said, the Government had promised to amend the law in this respect. No one knew this matter better than the hon. and learned Gentleman the Solicitor General for Ireland, because he was counsel for the Corporation when they fought the matter some years ago, and when the Court of Queen's Bench decided that the expenses would have to be borne by the city at large. He (Mr. Healy) presumed that if the Government were not able to accept his clause, they would state what they were prepared to do on Report.
§ Clause brought up, and read the first time.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the said Clause be read a second time."
§ THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. WALKER)thought there was a good case made out for some alteration of the present system, because Pembroke and Blackrock were distinct townships. The clause, however, did not supply the means of working out what the hon. and learned Member (Mr. Healy) desired. If the hon. and learned Gentleman would withdraw the clause, by Report a clause might be framed which would effect the object in view.
§ Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
§ MR. HEALYproposed the following new clause:— 1382
(Students in rooms not to be registered as lodgers.)No student occupying rooms in any college for collegiate purposes shall be entitled to be registered to vote as a ledger.The hon. and learned Gentleman said, he was induced by the speeches of the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board (Sir Charles W. Dilke), who, he regretted, was now absent, to put this Amendment on the Paper. The other night, when he moved an Amendment upon the Parliamentary Elections (Redistribution) Bill, the right hon. Gentleman promised him to look into the anomalous condition of things in Dublin, whereby young gentlemen, to the number of some hundreds, who had no interest whatever in the City of Dublin, and whose board and lodging as well as their education was paid for by their parents, were entitled to be placed on the list of lodgers and to vote in the election of Members for the City of Dublin. He had inquired whether anything of the kind existed at Oxford or Cambridge, and he had been told that no person in either of those Universities could vote as lodgers for the towns in which the Universities were situated. He need scarcely point out to the Committee how absurd it was that a number of young gentlemen who came up from the Provinces to Dublin University, occupying rooms there for purposes connected with their degrees, should plump themselves down to the number of 200 upon the voters' list of the city in which they paid no rent, rates, or taxes. That state of things did not exist in England or Scotland, and it had only existed in Ireland within the last few years owing to a decision sanctioning it given in the Dublin Registration Court. He was sure the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Gibson) would agree with him that those young gentlemen were already sufficiently represented in the House of Commons. The right hon. and learned Gentleman could not reasonably say that the students of Trinity College did not now possess a sufficient voice in the affairs of Parliament. He might be told that those gentlemen did not vote in the University. But they would soon get on the University Roll, and have the pleasure of recording their votes for the two right hon. and learned Gentlemen who now represented that constituency. The 1383 few hundred persons in the University were already accorded two very admirable Representatives; and, therefore, he now proposed that those students should not be allowed to vote in the City of Dublin—in other words, that the honest burgesses of Dublin, the people who paid rent, rates, and taxes in the city, should be allowed to have some little voice in the management of their own affairs.
§ Clause brought up, and read the first time.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the said Clause be read a second time."
§ MR. GIBSONsaid, that the hon. and learned Member (Mr. Healy) had moved the Amendment with such good humour, accompanied by kindly references to himself (Mr. Gibson) and his right hon. and learned Colleague (Mr. Plunket), that he felt a certain amount of difficulty in replying. But as the clause had been moved, he must encounter it by fair and legitimate argument. This was not a Disfranchisement Bill, and the whole Reform scheme of the Prime Minister and of the Government was an enfranchising and not a disfranchising scheme. This was not a Reform Bill, but a Registration Bill, and the particular section under discussion was such that if it found a place at all in any Bill it should be in a distinct Franchise Bill. The proposal of the hon. and learned Member was entirely opposed to the Reform Bill submitted to the House by the Government, and, therefore, was quite out of place. He might, however, say that it must not be taken that students were raw boys fresh from the country; they must be 21 years of age, and they must be in possession of rooms as lodgers for a year. Trinity College paid very large rates, and there was no reason whatever why those young gentlemen—he did not know the exact number of them, but he supposed there were less than 200 — [Mr. HEALY: Above 200.]—should be refused the right of contributing, not a very large share, to the voting power of the City of Dublin. It had been stated incidentally that none of the students of other Universities were registered as lodgers. That was not so. [Mr. HEALY: I said Oxford or Cambridge.] Hon. Members sometimes failed to remember all that they said. As a matter of fact, 1384 the hon. and learned Member for Monaghan (Mr. Healy) mentioned the Scotch Universities. He (Mr. Gibson) had ascertained how Scotland stood in this matter—indeed, only the other night the hon. Member for Glasgow (Mr. T. Russell) pointed out that the very same provision or arrangement prevailed in the Scotch Universities; that those who resided within the walls of the Glasgow University were registered to a much larger extent as voters for the City of Glasgow than the students in Trinity College, Dublin, were registered as voters for the City of Dublin. He (Mr. Gibson) did not know that that was so until it was stated. ["It is not so."] He did not know what the fact was, but what he had said was stated in the House the other night by the hon. Member for Glasgow without question or contradiction. He (Mr. Gibson) was not aware how affairs were managed at Oxford and Cambridge. He was not aware that the matter had ever been brought before the Revising Barrister for the City of Oxford or for the town of Cambridge; but it certainly was one to be decided according to the ordinary Registration Law of the country. He met this clause by saying it was a distinct disfranchisement clause, out of place in this Bill or in any Bill, out of keeping with all the statements of the Prime Minister, and that, therefore, he imagined there would be no hesitation on the part of the Committee—if, indeed, the hon. and learned Member for Monaghan (Mr. Healy) meant to press it—in rejecting it.
§ MR. R. BIDDULPH MARTINsaid, that when he was at Oxford some of the undergraduates endeavoured to get upon the Register, but without success. Of course, he was speaking of many years ago; but as far he remembered they were met by the objection that they had no possible right to be registered. He did not profess to have any knowledge of the state of affairs in the University of Dublin; but as Oxford and Cambridge had been mentioned he desired to state his experience.
§ MR. WILLIAMSONsaid, that as far as he understood no students resided within the University buildings in Scotland. If it be the case that no student in the Universities of Oxford or Cambridge was entitled to the franchise outside the University, he did not see why 1385 the students of Trinity College, Dublin, should be allowed to vote.
§ MR. HEALYsaid, the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Gibson) had said he (Mr. Healy) mentioned Scotland that night. He mentioned it three or four nights ago, and he was met by the hon. Member for Glasgow (Mr. T. Russell), who, of course, was a new Member of the House, and who did not know exactly what they were driving at, with the assertion that the Scotch Universities had votes. The hon. Gentleman seemed to think they were objecting to students who lived in the town having votes. The hon. Member for St. Andrews (Mr. Williamson) now stated that the Scotch students were not residential. The hon. Member for Glasgow (Mr. T. Russell) would see the mistaken view he had taken in this matter. The right hon. and learned Gentlemen (Mr. Gibson) very deftly seized upon the mistake of the hon. Member for Glasgow. It was not desired to deprive men lodging in towns from voting; but it was desired to deprive undergraduates from voting in respect of lodgings which they held as school boys and no more.
§ MR. GIBSONprotested against the method of carrying on Public Business. He had stated a series of propositions founded upon the statements of the Prime Minister; and he protested against the Government not rising to express their views upon this important subject.
§ MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANsaid, he did not know what the case exactly was at Oxford and Cambridge. As to the Scotch Universities, he never heard of residential students having votes. There might be students who lived in the Professors' houses, and who might be registered as lodgers. He could not say exactly how the matter stood; but there were no residential students in Scotland in the sense in which there were in Dublin and in Oxford and Cambridge. Treating the case as it stood, he was disposed to reply that he was very much averse to disfranchising anybody. He thought that the more people admitted to the franchise the better, providing they were justly entitled to it. If a student in Dublin, over 21 years of age, capable of exercising the franchise, was in such a position as in any other place would 1386 give him the franchise, why on earth should he not have it? If a student held his room or tenement in the same way and under such circumstances as would elsewhere give him the franchise, why should he not have it? The hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Monaghan (Mr. Healy) had said these persons were school boys sent up by their parents. Well, if they were, they were school boys of 21 years of age. He (Mr. Campbell-Bannerman) confessed he did not like the Amendment of the hon. and learned Member, and he was disposed to vote against it. This was not a question of politics, and the number of persons affected by the Amendment was small. [Mr. HEALY: 200.] Even if there be 200, he maintained that if they were qualified as lodgers, or in any other way, and that their qualification would be good in Cork, or Limerick, or Belfast, it ought to be good in Dublin. If their qualification was not good they would not be put on the Register. Do not let them be disqualified because they happened to be students.
§ MR. PARNELLsaid, he was very much surprised to hear the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant (Mr. Campbell-Bannerman)take the line he had done under what might justly be called the intimidation of the Front Opposition Bench. A distinct pledge was given upon this matter to his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Monaghan (Mr. Healy) by the President of the Local Government Board (Sir Charles W. Dilke) when the Irish Members felt it their duty to insist upon an assimilation of the English and Irish Registration Laws. They had gone no further. They had asked the Government and the Committee to agree to such Amendments of theirs as would assimilate the Registration Law of Ireland to that of England and Scotland. He (Mr. Parnell) put down some new clauses; but he felt that, having the principle of assimilation in view, they came in competition with those of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Tyrone (Mr. T. A. Dickson), and therefore he said nothing about them, but allowed them to go by default. His clauses were of a more perfect character, and of a very much more advantageous character, than those of the hon. Gentleman (Mr. T. A. Dickson); but as he and his hon. Friends 1387 had repeatedly announced that they only desired to bring the Registration Law of Ireland up to that of England, he considered he would not be entitled to persevere with them, for they would have opened up a wider and more extended field of improvement in the system of registration. But now they were met by the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary, under the circumstances to which he (Mr. Parnell) had just alluded, with a distinct refusal to carry out in the Dublin University the system which prevailed to his knowledge in both Oxford and Cambridge, and which prevailed, according to the testimony of the hon. Gentleman the Member for St. Andrews (Mr. Williamson), in the Scotch Universities. This was not an Amendment for disfranchising men who lived in lodgings outside the University; but it was an Amendment which declared that an undergraduate in the Dublin University, possessing peculiar advantages as a result of exceptional endowments, possessing peculiar advantages with regard to his rooms within the College, holding his rooms at a much less cost than he could obtain apartments elsewhere, should be treated in the same way as students were treated under similar circumstances in the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge and of Scotland. This was the first time in the consideration of this Bill that the claim of the Irish Members for assimilation had been refused. Now, there were circumstances connected with this matter which rendered the facts of the case still more aggravated. It so happened that Trinity College had been placed in the jerrymandered division of the City of Dublin, so that those 200 voters might make the difference of a seat to one Party or the other. If the Government refused to give the Irish Party fair play in respect to the boundaries of the different divisions, he and his hon. Friends were entitled to call upon the Government to give them, at least, fair play in this matter by making the law in Ireland similar to the law in England. The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Gibson) had said that this was a matter properly appertaining to the Representation of the People Act which had been passed, rather than for a Registration Bill. But whenever they raised a question like this on the Representation 1388 of the People Bill, they were told by the right hon. and learned Gentleman that it was a question to bring up on a Registration Bill; so that whether they hit high or hit low there was no pleasing the right hon. and learned Gentleman. Of course, that was what they expected from the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the University of Dublin; but they did expect that the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant would Act consistently in this matter, and maintain the tenour of the Bill so far as it had gone, a tenour which the Irish Members had not endeavoured to limit.
§ MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANsaid, he was not prepared to say whether there was any provision in any English Franchise or Registration Bill disqualifying students in Oxford or Cambridge because they were students. Students were either qualified, or they were not. If they were qualified, it was proposed that because they were students they should be disqualified. To that he objected. He had no predilection in favour of the students of Trinity College; but he did maintain that if a student living in a College had the ordinary qualification he should have the vote just as anyone else should.
§ MR. ARTHUR ARNOLDsaid, that whether there was or was not any provision in any English Act which would disqualify students of Universities because they were students, it was very probable that a large number of persons residing in the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge would come in under the new service franchise. The hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) had spoken about the division of the City of Dublin. He (Mr. Arnold) supported the hon. Gentleman against the Government when that question was formally raised in Committee on the Parliamentary Elections (Redistribution) Bill; but he could not support an Amendment which proposed to disfranchise a certain number of persons. From his point of view, the more men they could get on the Register the better. If men were admitted to the Register of voters he welcomed them there, and he could not see why inquiries should be made as to what order of men or what quality of men they were, or what position in life they occupied.
§ MR. H. G. ALLENsaid, that as the Committee did not seem to be aware of the English law on this subject, it was perhaps as well that he should direct their attention to the Reform Act, 2 & 3 Will. IV. c. 45, s. 78, which provided that—
Nothing in this Act shall entitle any person to vote in the election of Members to serve in Parliament for the city of Oxford or town of Cambridge in respect of the occupation of any chambers or premises in any of the Colleges or Halls of these Universities.This disqualification was recognized and continued by the Parliamentary and Municipal Registration Act, 1878, 41 & 42 Vict. c. 26, s. 43.
§ MR. GIBSONsaid, he was not inclined in the slightest degree to argue the case of Oxford and Cambridge. He was arguing a much narrower point. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Tewkesbury (Mr. R. Biddulph Martin) had recounted his own experiences at Oxford. He (Mr. Gibson) assumed that those experiences were prior to 1877–8. Had any effort been made in Oxford or Cambridge since Martin's Act was passed, and since a great many interpretations of the lodger franchise had been given, to test whether any person resident in those Universities could get on the Register for the borough? He was not aware that there had. Oxford and Cambridge seemed to have stood still in the matter for a good many years. But that was not his point. His point was that there were—taking the figures of the hon. and learned Member for Monaghan (Mr. Healy) as correct—200 persons actually on the Register and entitled to vote for the City of Dublin; and that this was an Amendment, not to enlarge the franchise, but to remove the voters in question from the Register and to disqualify them. He maintained that this was a monstrous proposition in face of all the statements that had been made to the House by the Prime Minister and by the Government, and of all the arguments which had been addressed to the House even by those who were in favour of the present proposition. There was nothing whatever under the existing law, as openly administered in the Irish Registration Courts, to prevent these young men being upon the Register. They occupied separate premises, for which they paid separate rent. Only that night the Committee had accepted 1390 an Amendment of the hon. and learned Member for Monaghan (Mr. Healy) himself, declaring that it was not necessary that separate premises should be separately rated. [Mr. HEALY: It is in the English law.] Be it so; they had accepted that provision. Now, this was not a Reform Bill, but a Registration Bill; and under cover of the Bill it was sought to remove from the Register men who, under the existing law, had aright to exercise the franchise. He appealed to the sense of fair play in the Committee—was it reasonable, was it just, was it fair that those 200 men should be struck off the Register because, as the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) had declared, they would vote in the one portion of the city where the hon. Member considered the chances of his Party were in jeopardy, owing to the equality in the strength of Parties? Was it fair or reasonable, when that was the avowed object of the Amendment, that those 200 men should be deprived of the franchise which, under the existing law, they were entitled to exercise?
§ MR. HEALYsaid, the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Gibson), referring in stentorian tones to the good service which the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Pembroke (Mr. H. G. Allen) had done in reading to the Committee the clause in the English Act bearing on this question, said he did not take his stand upon the case of Oxford and Cambridge. Yes; but the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant did. The right hon. Gentleman appealed to them to show him that English students were disqualified, and then he said he would be able to deal with them. From the right hon. Gentleman's own side—from the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Pembroke—came the statement that the students of Oxford and Cambridge were disqualified. He (Mr. Healy) called upon the Chief Secretary to make good his words; he pinned the right hon. Gentleman to his own words. The other night the right hon. Baronet the President of the Local Government Board (Sir Charles W. Dilke) said that this was a matter which did not arise upon the Parliamentary Elections (Redistribution) Bill; but if it were postponed he would give it his best con- 1391 sideration. Were they to be dodged like a shuttlecock from one Bill to another? At one time it was not a matter for the Representation of the People Bill, at another it was not a matter for the Parliamentary Elections (Redistribution) Bill, and at another it was a disfranchising clause. He (Mr. Healy) and his hon. Friends took their stand upon the declaration of Ministers. They were within the recollection of the Committee. The words of the Chief Secretary still echoed in the Chamber; the right hon. Gentleman said—"Point out to me in any English Act any disqualification similar to that now proposed." Of course, the inference was that if such a disqualification could be shown he was quite prepared to assimilate the Irish to the English law. All the Irish Members wanted was assimilation. They had been fighting for the English law, and they appealed to the right hon. Gentleman to stand by his own words, and give them in Ireland the benefit of the same law which was dealt out in Oxford and Cambridge.
§ MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANsaid he could not recall exactly the words he used; but he remembered that he began by saying he was against the disfranchisement of anybody. Then he asked hon. Members whether they could prove that what was alleged with regard to Oxford and Cambridge was really the fact. He asserted his own ignorance on the subject. He now found that the students in the Colleges of Oxford and Cambridge were disqualified by a special clause of an Act of Parliament—there was no doubt now upon the matter. He was sorry they were disqualified, because, as far as he could form an opinion, they ought not to be. If the hon. and learned Member (Mr. Healy) said that he (Mr. Campbell-Bannerman) went so far as to say he did not wish any different treatment of the students of Dublin University to that of the students of Oxford and Cambridge, he was afraid that precluded him from voting to extend a privilege to the students of the Dublin University which was denied to those of Oxford and Cambridge. He was sorry that by a hasty expression he had precluded himself from the possibility of voting upon this subject. Under the circumstances, it would perhaps be better that he should refrain from voting; but he thought his opinion on 1392 the subject would be gathered from what he had said. He did not think anyone ought to be prevented from voting because he happened to be a student. He regretted to find that the students of Oxford and Cambridge were excluded from the franchise, though they; might possess the necessary qualification.
SIR P. ASSHETON CROSSsaid, that he had understood that no one who had a vote was to be disfranchised. Long before this small question about University students was raised, the Prime Minister told the House, and no Member of the Government could possibly depart from the assertion, that no one was to be disfranchised by this Bill. The right hon. Gentleman had said so over and over again. And now, when they came to this particular point, it so happened that something had been found out which was different from what was expected—that was to say, the Irish Members who wished the same law as prevailed in England to prevail in Ireland —he wished they held that opinion in other matters—had found out that the English students had not the right to vote, whereas the Irish students had. That was no reason why the Irish students should be disqualified. It might be a good reason why the English students should be enfranchised; and if such a proposition were made he should certainly be inclined to support it. When he was at the University he felt his disfranchisement very much. He could never understand why he should not have a vote, occupying chambers in Cambridge as he did. He certainly could not agree to the disfranchisement of the students in Dublin because the students of Oxford and Cambridge were disqualified from voting. He took his stand upon the declaration of the Prime Minister that no one was to be disfranchised by this Bill. Of course, it was quite plain that this disfranchisement could not be made upon a mere Registration Bill, though he should oppose the proposal just as strongly if it were made upon a Franchise Bill. The question of the franchise was settled; and now they were dealing with the registration of those persons who were, by the Representation of the People Act, to have the right to vote. Nothing had been taken away from the Irish students by the Representation of the People Act. It was now a pure 1393 question of registration, and not of who were entitled to vote and who were not. He certainly should most strongly support the view which had been expressed by his right hon. and learned Friend the Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Gibson), and impress upon the Government the necessity of adhering strictly to the last statement of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary.
§ MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANIt was only a personal statement.
SIR E. ASSHETON CROSSsaid, there could be no personality in the case of a Government. The Prime Minister spoke for the Government, and his view was that no person should be disfranchised. He (Sir R. Assheton Cross) called upon every hon. Gentleman now sitting upon the Treasury Bench to carry out the view of the Prime Minister by going into the Lobby against the Amendment of the hon. and learned Member for Monaghan (Mr. Healy).
§ MR. O'SHEAsaid, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South-West Lancashire (Sir R. Assheton Cross) was quite mistaken. The Prime Minister never said that no one was to be disfranchised by this Bill.
§ SIR R. ASSHETON CROSSYes; over and over again.
§ MR. SHAW LEFEVRE,in reply to the right hon. Gentleman (Sir R. Assheton Cross), admitted, on the part of the Government, that the Prime Minister said more than once that the group of Bills now before the House—the Franchise Bill and the Registration Bills—were in no sense to be disfranchising Bills. Under those circumstances, the Government were precluded from voting with the hon. and learned Member for Monaghan (Mr. Healy), whatever view they might have of the merits of the case. If he (Mr. Shaw Lefevre) understood rightly there were many students in Trinity College, Dublin, who were now on the Register; and if the Committee were to accept the Amendment of the hon. and learned Gentleman those students would be disfranchised. The Committee would, therefore, be infringing the rule which the Prime Minister and the Government had laid down for themselves in this matter. He (Mr. Shaw Lefevre) would not express any opinion on the merits of the case. The time had passed for considering whether 1394 those students should have votes or not. That question ought to have been decided on the Representation of the People Bill of last year. This was a mere Registration Bill, and upon it the Government felt themselves precluded from making any change which would result in disfranchisement.
§ MR. T. D. SULLIVANsaid, that great weight had been attached to the statement of the Prime Minister that this was not to be a disfranchising Act, and that no class of persons would be disfranchised under it. This was a very curious case, which he believed did not come within the purview of the Prime Minister when he was making that assertion. It seemed to him to have been forgotten that the Prime Minister proclaimed another principle, and it was this—that under this Act the people of the Three Kingdoms should enjoy equal rights and privileges. He (Mr. Sullivan) maintained that that was as much a principle of the Prime Minister's speech and speeches with reference to this matter as the version which had been so frequently quoted. The right hon. Gentleman declared over and over again that there should be equalization of registration; but simply because this handful of young men happened to be Tory, and hailed from the centre or headquarters of Toryism in Ireland, the words of the Prime Minister as to disfranchisement were clung to with great affection by hon. and right hon. Gentlemen who sat above the Gangway on the Opposition side of the House. The Prime Minister committed himself, unmistakably, to the principle that there was to be from first to last in this matter equality of treatment between the people of the three countries; and it was only because the Tory Party found they had an advantage in this particular matter that they fastened on to the words of the Prime Minister, which he (Mr. Sullivan) was sure were never meant to cover a case such as that under consideration.
§ MR. R. BIDDULPH MARTINsaid, it seemed of importance that they should assimilate the laws which prevailed on this subject in the different parts of the United Kingdom. He thought it really would be in conformity with the wishes of the Committee that this Amendment should be passed, and that then the question of qualification or enfranchisement of University students in the three 1395 countries should be made the subject of a separate Bill. Though it was perfectly true that the Prime Minister said this was not a disfranchising Bill, the opportunity might be taken of adjusting this anomalous state of things. He hoped the Committee would take this opportunity of assimilating the law between the two countries, even at the risk, he must admit, of doing some injustice in this particular case.
§ MR. SMALLsaid, the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary (Mr. Campbell-Bannerman) had said it was not possible for him to support this Amendment, because it would have a disfranchising effect. But the Representation of the People Act of the Government was in some respects a disfranchising measure. ["Oh, oh!"] Yes; all joint occupiers of houses valued, say, at £10, were disfranchised by the Act passed last autumn. It seemed to him very extraordinary that right hon. Gentlemen on the Treasury Bench, who swallowed the Representation of the People Act, containing as it did several disfranchising clauses, should raise objection to some 200 young gentlemen being disqualified to vote in a constituency in which they had no title whatever to exercise the franchise.
§ MR. HEALYsaid, he had been greatly edified by the attitude of the Treasury Bench in this matter. He appealed to the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board (Sir Charles W. Dilke), who, the other night, distinctly promised to give the subject his best consideration. The right hon. Gentleman was brought into the House; but when he found what was going on, he, in the immortal words of Mr. Disraeli, "scuttled away." Then the Chief Secretary (Mr. Campbell-Bannerman) came to the fore. The right hon. Gentleman was very bold in the early portion of the night. He wanted the law of Ireland to be assimilated to that of England. "Show me," said the right hon. Gentleman, "anything in an English Act which disqualifies the students of Oxford and Cambridge, and then I will deal with the students of Trinity College, Lublin." And then, when the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Pembroke (Mr. H. G. Allen) produced the clause from the Reform Act which distinctly disqualified the students of Oxford and 1396 Cambridge from voting in the city or town, as the case might be, the right hon. Gentleman said—"I spoke hastily." The right hon. Gentleman had two voices—one voice was that of the Irish Secretary, and the other voice was that of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Stirling Burghs. The right hon. Gentleman now attempted to disassociate himself from his official position in the hope of defeating the Amendment. The inference to be drawn from the right hon. Gentleman's words was that if it was proved to be that English students were disqualified, he would assent to the disqualification of Irish students. When it was proved to him that English students were disqualified he said—"I only spoke for myself." What Minister ever took up such a position? Was it to be tolerated that in one breath the right hon. Gentleman should speak as the Irish Secretary, and in another breath as Mr. Campbell-Bannerman? The right hon. Gentleman, as Irish Secretary, opposed the Amendment on the ground that the provision involved was not contained in any English Act. It was proved to him that he was mistaken; but, nevertheless, he still opposed the Amendment, but not as the Irish Secretary, but in his personal capacity. And yet Irish Members were asked, upon matters relating to Ireland, to have full confidence in the Government. The President of the Local Government Board was called in by a messenger despatched by his Colleagues; but finding that the waters were troublous he made off. The Chief Secretary for Ireland, as such, repelled the Amendment; but in his individual capacity said—"I will not be able to vote against the Amendment, but I will not vote for it." Such was the conduct of the Government in which they were asked to have confidence. Then the righthon. Gentleman the Postmaster General (Mr. Shaw Lefevre) came forward, and said—"Oh, but the Prime Minister has said this is not a disfranchising Bill." The Prime Minister said that in reference to a particular Bill. Let the dead bury its dead. What the right hon. Gentleman said last July under totally different circumstances did not apply now.
§ MR. SHAW LEFEVREsaid, he did not refer to anything the Prime Minister said on the Representation of the People! Bill, but to a declaration the right hon. 1397 Gentleman made on the group of Registration Bills.
§ MR. HEALYsaid, that, as far as his recollection served him, the Prime Minister made no such declaration with regard to any group of Bills. In the famous phrase of the Home Secretary (Sir William Harcourt), on the 17th of March, "Where are the traces?" Produce the Prime Minister's words upon which this Amendment was opposed. The Government could not deny that he was led the other night to withdraw an Amendment bearing upon the subject by the promise of the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board (Sir Charles W. Dilke) to look into the matter. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary (Mr. Campbell-Bannerman) could not deny that to-night he asked them to show him what was provided by the English Act, and then he would know whether he ought to assimilate the laws of the two countries.
§ MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANNo; I did not say that.
§ MR. HEALYremarked, that it was only a few minutes ago that the right hon. Gentleman said he did not recollect what he did say. He (Mr. Healy) appealed to English Members who had been witnesses of these proceedings whether there had been a creditable exhibition on the part of Her Majesty's Government? He appealed to English Gentlemen to refrain from supporting the Government on this occasion. He thought that when pledges were given by the Government the House ought to be in a position to rely upon them. The other night they were led astray by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Glasgow (Mr. Thomas Russell). It turned out that there were no residential students in the Glasgow University; that, in fact, the only places where there were residential students were Oxford and Cambridge, and that those students were distinctly disqualified. They were told by the hon. Member for Salford (Mr. Arnold) that he wished to get everybody on the Register they possibly could, so he (Mr. Healy) wished that everyone possessing proper qualifications should be put upon the Register; but the students in Trinity College did not, in his opinion, possess the necessary qualifications, and, therefore, they ought to be struck off. Such were the arguments 1398 with which he and his hon. Friends were met; and he confidently appealed to the honour of English Gentlemen to say whether the words of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary were not words which led the Committee to believe that if these students of Oxford and Cambridge were disqualified he would be prepared to refuse to admit to the franchise in Dublin City people who did not pay any rent, rates, or taxes?
§ MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANobjected to the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Monaghan (Mr. Healy) attributing to him the assertion that he was prepared to assimilate the laws of the two countries in that respect. At the outset he said he was in favour of disfranchising no one; he said he did not know how the facts stood with regard to Oxford and Cambridge; and he asked hon. Members on the other side of the House whether they could produce any evidence that the students of Oxford and Cambridge were disqualified from voting. Then he went on to say that it was his opinion—and such was still his opinion—that if a student had such a qualification that, under any other circumstances, he would obtain a vote, he should not be disqualified because he was a student. What had happened since he made his speech? All that had happened was this—that the discovery had been made that there was a special clause in an Act of Parliament which excluded the students living in any of the Colleges of Oxford and Cambridge from voting. He said again he was very sorry for it, and he should be very glad to see that law repealed. Now, what were they to do with reference to the clause proposed by the hon. and learned Member (Mr. Healy)? He thought the Government would be altogether wrong, and that the Committee would be altogether wrong, if it proceeded to disfranchise those who already possessed the franchise in Dublin, because it so happened that what appeared to him to be an injustice was done in Oxford and Cambridge. He was in the recollection of the Committee that what he had now said was the gist of what he stated originally. He was puzzled to discover any particular inconsistency in anything he had laid before the Committee.
§ MR. JOHN O'CONNORsaid, a great deal had been said that night about the disfranchisement of men. He had as much regard for the natural rights of men as the right hon. Gentlemen who occupied the Front Government and Opposition Benches; but he held that the students of Trinity College, contemplated by this Amendment, were not men in the proper sense of the term, but were mere birds of passage. Speaking as a citizen who often had to come into contact with those gentlemen, he objected to have his citizen rights overborne by the votes of mere birds of passage. What other functions did those gentlemen perform? Did they serve upon juries? No. Did they join the Army? Perhaps they would in a while; but they were exempt from doing so now. Did they fulfil any conditions of citizenship? No, they were merely there as a floating balance of power to overbear the votes and the voices of such citizens as paid rates. Those men came and went, and left no traces behind them, except the expression of their peculiar opinions. For those reasons he supported the proposal of his hon. and learned Friend (Mr. Healy), and he appealed to the Government to assimilate the law of the two countries in this respect, as they had endeavoured to do in others.
§ MR. THOMAS RUSSELLwas sorry if anything he said the other night led the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Monaghan (Mr. Healy) to understand that there were any residential students in the Scotch Universities. He (Mr. Thomas Russell) was perfectly aware that in Scotland no students were resident within the University; but he had yet to learn that residence within College walls was to make a difference between a student living there and a student living in a street close by. If a student fulfilled the law so as to qualify as a lodger, he did not see why he should be debarred from the privilege of the franchise, and it was not so in Scotland. Every student who fulfilled the lodger qualification had a vote.
§ MR. THOMAS RUSSELLsaid, that that was so; but he could not conceive that residence within the College made any difference in the matter. He should like to point out to the hon. Gentleman who last addressed the Commit- 1400 tee (Mr. J. O'Connor) that students were not mere birds of passage, but fulfilled all the duties of citizenship just as much as other classes of lodgers— they paid rents, and taxes were included in their rents. Other lodgers did not serve upon juries, and he did not see why a student, possessed of all the necessary qualifications to entitle him to the lodger franchise, should be treated differently to the bank clerk or the mechanic who might be a lodger. He might also point out to the Committee that at present Ireland and Scotland were in the same position as regarded students. He was very sorry indeed to hear that the students in Oxford and Cambridge had not the same privilege, and he thought it extremely desirable that they should have the same privilege conferred upon them. It was perfectly evident to everybody that a student of 21 years of age, with a considerable amount of knowledge, was as well qualified to exercise the franchise as any other lodger. Seeing that Ireland and Scotland were in this matter upon an equal footing, he thought it would be better that the law of England should be assimilated to the law in those countries.
MR. MACARTNEYpointed out that the students in the Temple had votes for the City of London. They always had had votes, and they were not debarred from voting because they happened to reside within an establishment in which law was taught.
§ MR. SEXTONsaid, it was as well, before they went to a division, that the claim put forward on behalf of those young men should be thoroughly understood. The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Gibson) wished the Committee to maintain an exclusive privilege on behalf of this body of young men, which was denied to young men in a similar condition in Great Britain. There was no similar case in Scotland, because in Scotland no residential students existed. What was the difference between a student who lived in his University, and a bank clerk, for instance, who occupied apartments in the city? The bank clerk, who was a man earning his own living, had, generally speaking, to pay heavily for his apartments; whereas the student was in a state of pupilage, and occupied his rooms at 1401 a particularly low rent, owing to public generosity—["No!"] Did the hon. Gentleman who interrupted him mean to say that a student in Trinity College paid as much for his rooms as a young man lodging in the City of Dublin paid? It was well known that Trinity College was richly endowed from the lands that some time ago were taken from the people; it was well known that the possession by Trinity College of those lands, and the rents they yielded, enabled the Governing Body of Trinity College to give rooms to young men and the students of the College at rates which were only a fraction of those paid by the gentlemen who lodged outside. That was the difference between the student in Trinity College and the bank clerk lodging in the city. That was a fundamental difference; and the claim which was now made on behalf of those students was a claim to maintain and continue an exclusive privilege, which was not only unjust to those on whose behalf it was made, but offensive to the general body of the community outside. The Committee had been told that the Government scheme of Reform was not intended to have any disfranchising effect. But there were disfranchising clauses in the Representation of the People Act, and he was surprised to hear the right hon. Gentleman the Postmaster General (Mr. Shaw Lefevre) endeavour to represent this scheme of Reform to be entirely free from any disfranchising element. He (Mr. Sexton) was completely at a loss to understand what the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant (Mr. Camp-bell-Bannerman) wished the Committee to understand with regard to his position in the House and in the Government, and with regard to the meaning to be attached to the declarations he made in debate. They saw the right hon. Gentleman a couple of days ago, when he yielded to the solemn voice of the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Gibson), left in the lurch. After he had made declarations at the Table as positive as that he had made to-night, they saw him, when the common sense of the Committee went unanimously against him, abdicating his position and abandoning his responsibility; they saw him, as the hon. and learned Member for Monaghan (Mr. Healy)had said, "scuttle out of the House." If the right hon. 1402 Gentleman did not intend to take up a misleading position, perhaps he would inform the Committee what his position really was. The right hon. Gentleman, only a few minutes ago, challenged hon. Members to show him any clause disqualifying students in England. When, after a lapse of time, the clause in the English Act was produced, the right hon. Gentleman coolly said—"Oh, I made no promise to assimilate the law of the two countries." What was the meaning of the challenge the right hon. Gentleman threw out?
§ MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANI did not challenge anybody. I merely asked for the production of the clause.
§ MR. SEXTONsaid, that that was only another instance of the unfair treatment to which Irish Members were subjected. Really, the strong Caledonian common sense of the right hon. Gentleman had developed, since he became Chief Secretary, into strong Hibernian ingenuity. The inference to be drawn from the right hon. Gentleman's words were that, in his opinion, there was no clause in an Act of Parliament disqualifying the students of Oxford and Cambridge; when, however, an hon. and learned Gentleman behind him (Mr. H. G. Allen) produced the clause the right hon. Gentleman executed a manœuvre worthy of Jim Crow. If the disqualifying clause could not have been produced, the right hon. Gentleman would have pleaded and relied upon the absence of such a clause as a reason for opposing the present Amendment. The clause was produced, and from that moment its significance ceased. The right hon. Gentleman then became, not the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant, but the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Stirling Burghs. At the moment the right hon. Gentleman retained the salary of the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant, but threw off the responsibility of Office. Hitherto they had been accustomed in the House of Commons to understand that even though the Government might break promises which related to any date, to any month, or any year, they would at least have the good faith to keep a promise which related only to the present. They had been accustomed to understand that Ministers in charge of a Bill were to be relied upon to carry out the natural indication flowing from their 1403 language. The right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Campbell-Bannerman) had, however, introduced the House to a new condition of ethics; and if he proceeded much longer in the manner in which he proceeded the other night, when, after having pledged himself to a certain course on a Bill, he failed to carry out his compact, and he shamed his own compeers by leaving the House—if he again repeated such conduct it would be well he should have two flags, and hoist one or the other according as he spoke in his official or in his personal capacity.
§ THE JUDGE ADVOCATE GENERAL (Mr. OSBORNE MORGAN)said, the argument would disqualify not only students, but Masters of Arts, Professors, and so forth.
§ MR. SEXTONNo; students only.
§ THE JUDGE ADVOCATE GENERAL (Mr. OSBORNE MORGAN)said, the argument was that students occupied rooms at a cheaper rate than outsiders; and of course that argument applied equally to Masters of Arts and other members of the Universities.
§ MR. SEXTONThe argument applied to those in a state of pupilage.
§ THE JUDGE ADVOCATE GENERAL (Mr. OSBORNE MORGAN)said, he thought a great deal of unnecessary heat had been imported into that discussion. No one could suppose for a moment that the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant had desired to mislead the Committee in anything that he had said. His right hon. Friend had fallen into the mistake which he had admitted—namely, of saying that not only graduates, but undergraduates in Oxford and Cambridge, were entitled to vote for the borough. This was not a disfranchising Bill, and he (Mr. Osborne Morgan) would therefore suggest that this Amendment should not be pressed, but that some opportunity should be taken hereafter of correcting what hon. Members admitted to be an injustice, and which arose from the peculiar position of the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge at the time the Statute was passed—namely, that the Colleges had been formerly extra-parochial, and not liable to pay rates. That was the reason the clause had been passed; but that condition of things had long ceased to 1404 exist. He would suggest that the present Amendment should be either withdrawn or negatived, and that some future opportunity should be taken of removing the injustice done to members of Oxford and Cambridge Universities, and of putting graduates at least who were disqualified in a position to vote.
§ MR. PARNELLsaid, he rose for the purpose of asking the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant for some information as to the course which he intended personally to adopt. He wished to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he intended to vote for the original proposal or the Amendment of his (Mr. Parnell's) hon. and learned Friend the Member for Monaghan (Mr. Healy), or whether he intended to take the third course of walking out of the House when the Question was put; because the right hon. Gentleman had on three several and distinct occasions that evening announced to the Committee that he was going to adopt each one of those courses. It was obvious that he could not adopt three courses; and he (Mr. Parnell) should be glad to know, for his own information, if the right hon. Gentleman had fixed upon the course he intended to adopt? As to the statement of the right hon. and learned Gentleman who had just spoken (Mr. Osborne Morgan), he (Mr. Parnell) thought he would probably find that the opportunity which had been referred to would be presented to the Conservative Party a little sooner than the right hon. and learned Gentleman or his Government would like on the Registration Bill. When that opportunity came he did not see how the Government could possibly refuse to adopt an Amendment enfranchising the students of Oxford and Cambridge in the face of the attitude they had adopted in regard to the students of Trinity College.
§ MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANsaid, the hon. Member who had just spoken had appealed to him to know what course he proposed to follow, and he (Mr. Campbell-Bannerman) thought he had explained that already. He had endeavoured to do so several times. He had addressed the Committee on this small point repeatedly, and had given a good many reasons against the Amendment of the hon. and learned Member for Monaghan (Mr. Healy). On the first occasion he had, amongst other reasons, 1405 stated that he had not been aware of the facts of the cases of Oxford and Cambridge, and he had asked hon. Gentlemen who had spoken about it if they could produce evidence of the facts they alleged. That was the whole sum— front, beginning, and end—of his offence. On that occasion he (Mr. Campbell-Bannerman) had said that he did not know what the state of things at Oxford and Cambridge was, and should be glad to know it. Now, however, they knew that the students at Oxford and Cambridge did not vote for the city and borough. But he had then stated —and he would refrain from stating again—a good many other considerations, every one of which led him to reject the proposal of the hon. and learned Member.
MR. ILLING-WORTHsaid, the state of the law was anomalous between the different parts of the United Kingdom. In Scotland and Ireland it seemed that these undergraduates were qualified to vote at borough elections.
§ MR. ILLINGWORTHsaid, that, at any rate, the undergraduate in Dublin came under the conditions of the law as to the lodger franchise. With every disposition to go as far as possible with the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Monaghan (Mr. Healy), he was afraid the hon. and learned Member really had not, and could not make out, a case for the refusal of the franchise to undergraduates as lodgers. The case was that there was an apparent injustice to the undergraduates in the Colleges of Oxford and Cambridge; but it seemed to him that really in no Registration Bill, neither English nor Irish, were they called upon to deal with the question of this franchise. He would go further, and say that he thought that what hon. Gentlemen opposite were entitled to attack in every possible way was the representation of the University itself. It was that that was the main grievance. Upon that point he (Mr. Illingworth) had already voted with the Irish Members, and upon that point he should be glad to go with them again. But surely there could not be a case established—surely Parliament could not take cognizance as to what particular buildings persons might live in, or whether the rent of those buildings was 1406 higher or lower according to the peculiar circumstances of the case. If the students complied with the ordinary conditions of the law, no Revising Barrister should go beyond the ordinary inquiry, and distinguish, as hon. Gentlemen opposite had distinguished, between different classes. He could only hope that hon. Gentlemen would go a step further, and would not draw a distinction between the position of these electors and those who might be bank clerks, or who might hold other positions. He did not hold that these students were birds of passage any more than were other classes of young men who were entitled to the franchise. [Mr. HEALY: They are not producers.] He (Mr. Illingworth) really thought that hon. Members opposite were arguing a case on which justice did not stand on their side.
§ SIR R. ASSHETON CROSSsaid, he wished to say a word as to how this matter stood, so far as the English Universities were concerned. The graduates and undergraduates did not vote under the old system previous to 1832. It was thought that, under the first Reform Act, students might be qualified to vote for the city of Oxford and borough of Cambridge. It was thought right, in the Reform Act, to insert a special clause, stating that nothing in the measure should enable the students of Oxford and Cambridge to vote for the city of Oxford or the town of Cambridge. They never had done so before, and all the Act of 1832 did was to say that they should not be allowed by that Act to vote for the city or the borough; but, so far as other Universities of England were concerned, there was nothing to prevent students of the University of Durham, or the Victoria University of Manchester, from voting just like ordinary persons. The clause that was passed in 1832 did not seem to have been passed in the case of Dublin; and when they came to the English Bill, and the question again arose as to allowing students at Oxford and Cambridge to vote for the city and borough respectively, he should be ready to support a proposal to extend the privilege to them.
§ MR. COMMINSwas of opinion that the two main points involved in this question had been, to a large extent, evaded. The first was—was the law in 1407 Ireland to be assimilated to that in England as to the position of students who were in statu pupillari, and were not sui juris? With regard to Durham, there were no resident students there, and there were no residential students in the Victoria University of Manchester, to which the right hon. Gentleman who had just sat down had referred. Nor were there any either in the London University or the Royal University of Ireland. The only students who were in a similar position to those at Oxford and Cambridge were the students of the University of Dublin residing within the walls of Trinity College.
§ SIR R. ASSHETON CROSSThe students of Durham are in the same position.
§ MR. COMMINSsaid, he was not aware that there were any residential students in Durham. If there were any, they were so few that they were not worth taking any note of. He should like to know how many dozen students of the University of Durham were resident within the walls of that University, or ever were at one time? He did not believe that one dozen were ever residential within the walls at one period. The question was—were they to assimilate the law of Ireland to that of England in this matter? The policy of doing that had been sufficiently pointed out in the Committee. There was a higher question than that which hon. Members had been discussing, and that was—was it advisable that students who, as he had said, were not sui juris, and were subject to academical discipline, should have the apple of discord, in the form of political partizanship, thrown amongst them? Was it wise that those students should have their thoughts diverted from those legitimate objects which had taken them to the Universities—was it advisable that they should be thrown into the confusion and turmoil of election contests, which meant the destruction of all University discipline? It was evidently the opinion of the Government in 1832 that that state of things was not advisable, and they had introduced a clause into the Reform Act, stating that the students of Oxford and Cambridge should not enjoy the franchise for the city and town. The provision did not apply to Masters of Arts, or to anyone but students, and for the exclusion of those there were ample grounds. He 1408 thought that, instead of taking away the disability in the case of the English students, it should be allowed to remain to protect them against political turmoil, and to secure for them the serene air of the Universities, and that the students of Trinity College, Dublin, should be placed in the same position.
§ MR. MARUMsaid, he just wished to say one word before the Committee divided. He was a Member of the London University, and, as such, he wished to remind the Committee that the Reform Act of 1832 had deliberately made this exception. The reasons for the adoption of this provision 50 years ago were sound, and he did not see why the same reasons should not obtain at the present day. He did not know that they were any better reformers than their ancestors.
§ MR. TOMLINSONdeprecated the adoption of this proposal as an Amendment to a Bill with which it really had no concern. Reasons had been given for the Amendment inconsistent with each other. The hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) had based his support of this proposal on the ground that the students were birds of passage; but students were none the less birds of passage if they happened to live outside instead of inside the walls of the University. The students of the Scotch Universities or of the University of London were quite as much birds of passage as those who lived within the walls of the University of Dublin. Then the hon. Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton) had based his support of the proposal upon an entirely different ground. He maintained that students who lived in Universities were in a less independent position than those who occupied lodgings. But students who lived outside the walls of the Universities were partakers of the benefits of belonging to the Universities just as much as those who lived within the walls of a College. There was in the University of Oxford at the present time a system by which certain students did not belong to any College. They were members of the University, and subject to a special Governing Body. Those gentlemen were, apparently, not excluded from voting; and he maintained that this exceptional exclusion of those who had rooms in the Colleges should be brought to an end. It was said that those students 1409 were not sui juris; but that applied to those who lived outside the walls as well as to those who lived within. The whole thing was anomalous, and could not be consistently supported. The proposal was, moreover, as he had observed, outside this Bill, which was to amend the law for the registration of voters in Ireland, and had nothing to do with disfranchisement. If hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway desired to bring forward a proposal for disfranchisement of this kind, they should have done so on the Representation of the People Bill. They had told the Committee that that Bill was to a large extent a disfranchising measure, though there was some exaggeration in the manner in which they alluded to it; but if they had a clause to move on this subject they should have brought it in as an Amendment to that Bill. The Amendment at this moment should be rejected by the Committee.
§ Question put.
§ The Committee divided:—Ayes 34; Noes 127: Majority 93.—(Div. List, No. 147.)
§ MR. SEXTONsaid, he now begged to move the first of the three clauses standing on the Paper in his name, entitled "Service by post of form of requisition." The clause was an attempt to deal with a very pressing matter. It said—
No clerk of union, or other official to whom the form of requisition for names of inhabitant occupiers is to be returned when filled up, shall be entitled to refuse to receive such form, or omit to proceed upon the information it contains, because it has been returned through the post without prepayment of postage, but shall receive such form, and act in regard to it in every respect, as if the postage had been prepaid, and, in case of failure so to do, every such clerk or other official shall be liable in respect of each such form refused or not proceeded upon to a penalty of not less than forty shillings.The Act gave no instructions as to whether the form sent out by the Guardians bearing the name of the inhabitant occupier should be prepaid or not, and the fact was that a number of forms had been returned with no stamp upon them, and the Guardians had been charged by the Post Office 1d. for each. There was this pressing difficulty to face— that many of the Boards of Guardians in Ireland might for political reasons refuse to act upon the Returns which 1410 came to them without the postage having been prepaid. In the North Dublin Union he had been informed that a large number of the forms had been returned unstamped. The clerk had asked whether he was to receive the returned forms and pay the postage, or whether he was to refuse them, and the Chairman had said that it would be hard to deprive those people of the franchise because they had not prepaid the postage on the forms which they had sent in. He (Mr. Sexton) had seen one of the forms sent out by the North Dublin Union, and he had noticed on the back of it the letters O.H.M.S., which everybody understood to mean "On Her Majesty's Service." When those letters appeared on a document the general impression was that it could go through the post free of charge. In the North Dublin Union, Mr. M'Neil, a Tory Guardian, had moved that the Returns which were sent back unstamped should be refused. That motion was not carried; but had it been made in the South Dublin Union instead of the North, no doubt it would have been adopted, and that would have had the effect of excluding those persons from the Register. He (Mr. Sexton) did not care very much how the matter as settled. If it were agreed that the Post Office should carry the letters post free, it would suit his purpose very well; or if, on the other hand, it was decided to instruct the Guardians to receive the notices, whether stamped or not, he should be satisfied. The amount would not be very great, supposing nobody paid the postage. About 700,000 notices would be sent out, being the number which would come upon the Electoral Roll under the Representation of the People Act, and, supposing that none of them paid the postage, the whole sum would only amount to about £1,000. No doubt, after those matters had been discussed and noticed in the papers, a great many people would take the precaution to pay the postage, but some might not do so, and it would be unfortunate if by a misapprehension a great many people should be deprived of the vote. He would press his Amendment very strongly, and he hoped the hon. and learned Gentleman the Solicitor General for Ireland would be able to assure him either that the Post Office would deliver the notices without charge, or that the Guardians 1411 would be instructed to receive them and act upon them whether they were stamped or not.
§
New Clause:—
(Service by post of form of requisition.)
No clerk of union, or other official to whom the form of requisition for names of inhabitant occupiers is to be returned when filled up, shall be entitled to refuse to receive such form, or omit to proceed upon the information it contains, because it has been returned through the post without prepayment of postage, but shall receive such form, and act in regard to it in every respect, as if the postage had been prepaid, and, in case of failure so to do, every such clerk or other official shall be liable in respect of each such form refused or not proceeded upon to a penalty of not less than forty shillings,"—(Mr. Sexton,)
—brought up, and read the first time.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the said Clause be read a second time."
§ THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. WALKER)said, the question as to whether those notices should be carried without being stamped was one entirely for the Postmaster General. He did not think there would be any difficulty in the matter, at any rate not so much as was anticipated. He thought it would be well to leave it to the common sense of the Clerks of the Unions, and that it was not necessary to legislate in the matter.
§ MR. LEAMYasked whether the Local Government Board would have any objection to send instructions to the Clerks of the Unions to receive those forms unstamped?
§ MR. HEALYsaid, he hoped the Postmaster General would take a liberal view of this matter, and that in view of the fact that thousands of new voters would come on the Register, many of whom would not know that it was necessary that the notice should be returned with the postage prepaid, he would not enforce the halfpenny stamp.
§ MR. SEXTONsaid, the Solicitor General for Ireland had not touched the case at all. What had happened at Dublin would happen again in these cases. The clerk would refuse to receive the notices. There was a great possibility of fraud and collusion under the existing arrangement. The majority on the Boards of Guardians were Tories; and if the Tory landlords occupied themselves with politics, and objected to the 1412 popular candidate, all that was necessary was that the landlords should send back the paper unstamped, and the Tory Clerk of the Union or other official should decline to receive it. He contended that they should not be placed within the possibility of a large number of people being disfranchised for the want of a halfpenny stamp. He felt sure that the right hon. Gentleman the Postmaster General would not, for the sake of the small sum of money involved, refuse to instruct his subordinates in Ireland that, whenever these Returns came into their hands, the fact of their not being stamped should not be allowed to interfere with their delivery; he would not refuse to guarantee that the papers should get into the hands of the persons to whom they were addressed whether they were stamped or not. The whole matter was a very small one, and one that, in his opinion, ought to be decided without hesitation.
§ MR. SEXTONsaid, he hoped the right hon. Gentleman and the hon. and learned Solicitor General for Ireland would be able to devise a practical settlement of the matter. He would ask leave to withdraw his Amendment in that expectation.
MR. ILLING WORTHsaid, before the Amendment was withdrawn he wished to express a hope that there would be no miscarriage of justice over a technical matter of this kind; but while it would be a very serious thing that the object of the Bill should be nullified by the want of these stamps, he trusted, on the other hand, that care would be taken that no harm was done to the Inland Revenue.
§ Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
§ MR. SEXTONsaid, he believed that no one would contest his contention that any Clerk of the Union or other official charged with any duty under the Re-presentation of the People Act, 1884, who refused to carry out that duty, and thereby endangered the vote of any person, should be dismissed from his office. The clerk or official who delayed or killed time in connection with his duties came within the scope of that contention, and he thought it was necessary clearly to indicate at the earliest pos- 1413 sible moment that no insubordination, delay, or action likely to prejudice the rights of voters, should be tolerated by that House; and, for that reason, he asked the Committee to say that if any official sinned against the Act in question he would not be allowed to retain his position. With that object in view he would move the Amendment in his name.
§
New Clause:—
(Duties of clerks of unions under "The Representation of the People Act, 1884.")
Any clerk of union, or other official charged with any duty by The Representation of the People Act, 1884,' who, after having been called upon to perform such duty, shall refuse or delay to enter upon and proceed with such performance, shall be liable to dismissal without notice,"—(Mr. Sexton,)
—brought up, and read the first time.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the said Clause be read a second time."
§ MR. GIBSONsaid, this was an important clause. He did not at all object to a clerk who, by delay or neglect, caused grave obstruction in a matter of this kind being punished for it. That was entirely right; but it would seem a matter to be dealt with by the official heads of the Department. He did not know whether the Government felt that this clause, as drafted, was necessary to strengthen their hands; whether, in its present form, it was calculated to do so in the most efficient way. He desired to elicit from the Government how far they considered a clause of the kind necessary, and how far they were satisfied with the clause as proposed?
§ THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. WALKER)said, he did not think it necessary to introduce into the Bill a clause of this kind, because such a breach of duty would be considered a matter justifying dismissal. He considered that to adopt a new clause under the circumstances would be to go beyond the necessities of the case.
§ MR SEXTONsaid, the point was that every hour was of importance in this matter of the voting of the people. They knew that evil-doing on the part of a Clerk of the Union or official could only be discovered months afterwards. This clause was not intended to meet the case of default; it was only intended to meet the case of refusal or delay in 1414 proceeding. It was a matter for ascertainment by the Local Government Board. If it were reported to the Local Government Board that any clerk or official had refused to proceed, they could then send down and investigate the matter. But that should be done without notice, for obvious reasons. He thought it necessary to deal with a dereliction of duty by a penalty; and, in this case, thousands of people might be disfranchised unless the officials were told that the iniquity in question would entail loss of office.
§ THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. WALKER)said, he had already pointed out that in the case of misconduct no notice was necessary.
§ MR. HEALYsaid, that, last year, they had made out a list of over 100 cases where an official had acted falsely and fraudulently; but what satisfaction did they get by leaving the matter to be dealt with by the Local Government Board? Why, the fact that officials were accused by hon. Members on those Benches was in itself sufficient to cause right hon. Gentlemen on the Treasury Bench to screen them. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland was President of the Irish Local Government Board, and how did he treat complaints made to him? His one idea was not to please the people, to give them satisfaction, or to do anything agreeable to them. He would screen the officials, and the one question he would ask himself would be—"How can I thwart the Parnellites?" His own belief was that when the Clerks of Unions and officials in Ireland grossly misconducted themselve, the right hon. Gentleman and the Irish Government would quite as grossly maintain them in their offices.
§ MR. SEXTONsaid, unless the Government promised to take the matter into consideration and ceased to put them off with answers of the kind they had just received, he thought they would be compelled to occupy considerably more time in discussing the question. He understood the Solicitor General for Ireland to say that the course that would be pursued was that which he (Mr. Sexton) wished to have declared in the Bill. Both the learned Gentlemen who had spoken on the Amendment admitted that if an official did what was described in the clause—that was to say, refused to 1415 perform his duty, or delayed to enter upon its performance—he was liable to dismissal. What then was the cause of the abhorrence on the part of the Government to have that declared; what harm could there be in saying that under the circumstances the individual would be dismissed? There was one other course open to the Government. If they had this insuperable objection to the clause, would they accept a compromise—that was to say, if under the circumstances, as was admitted, an official was liable to dismissal, would the President of the Irish Local Government Board undertake that the Board would immediately issue to the Clerks of Unions a Circular intimating to them upon the authority of the Board that refusal or delaying to perform the duties cast upon them by the Act would entail their dismissal?
§ MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANYes, Sir. I do not accept the way in which the hon. and learned Member for Monaghan (Mr. Healy) has put this question, or his description of the action of the officials of the Local Government Board. I can assure him, however, that we have every desire to see justice done in this matter; but I am not aware that any instance has been pointed out to me, or my hon. and learned Friend near me, of unfairness in these matters. The Local Government Board have undertaken to issue instructions, but we could not accept the clause in its present form. If it will meet the views of the hon. Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton) I will agree to a clause running in this way—
Any clerk of union, or other official…who, after having been called upon to perform such duty, shall wilfully refuse or delay, and so on.
§ MR. SEXTONI accept that.
§ MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANI think there would be no objection to that.
§ Clause read a second time.
§ Question, "That the word 'wilfully' be there inserted," put, and agreed to.
§ Clause, as amended, agreed to, and added to the Bill.
§
New Clause:—
(Devolution of title.)
For the purposes of this Act the production of letters of administration by any claimant in order to establish any devolution of title to or from any qualification shall not be deemed
1416
necessary, and the pendency of proceedings under or the non-compliance with any of the provisions of the third section of 'The Land Law (Ireland) Act, 1881,' shall not be deemed to invalidate a claim to any qualification,"— (Mr. Marum,)
—brought up, and read the first time.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause be now read a second time."
§ THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. WALKER)said, he did not think it would be advisable to accept the clause.
§ COLONEL KING-HARMANsaid, he must confess that the difficulty which the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Kilkenny (Mr. Marum) aimed at by the clause was one very certain to arise.
§ MR. ARTHUR O'CONNORsaid, this was not so much a question of difficulty as a matter of actual fact. At the last revision in the Queen's County, a considerable number of men were disfranchised because they had not taken out letters of administration. He knew of cases where men had died leaving several sons, but only one son had remained in occupation of the farm for perhaps 12 or 15 years, this arrangement being completely satisfactory to all the parties. According to ordinary presumption, the man who had been in occupation, and had paid rates, was entitled to vote. But that was not enough for the gentleman who presided at the Registration Court, and he disallowed vote after vote, on the ground that though the men had been in exclusive occupation for a very great number of years, they had not qualified themselves legally by taking out letters of administration. Primâ facie claims to be registered did not avail the men at all. He (Mr. Arthur O'Connor) saw his constituents, one after another, disfranchised on no better ground than that he had stated. This means of disfranchisement had been adopted in the past, and he had no doubt it would be adopted in the future unless steps were taken to avoid it.
§ COLONEL KING-HARMANasked if the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Arthur O'Connor) could give the Committee an estimate of the disfranchisements under such circumstances?
§ MR. ARTHUR O'CONNORsaid, that he saw five men disfranchised in a quarter of an hour.
§ THE SOLICITOR GENERAL (Sir FARRER HERSCHELL)said, he did not think that such disfranchisement as the hon. Gentleman (Mr. A. O'Connor) referred to would be possible, when regard was had to the provisions of this Bill. There was a clause providing that actual occupation should give the vote, and if evidence were given of actual occupation, one could hardly understand the vote being disallowed. As to the latter part of the clause of the hon. and learned Gentleman opposite (Mr. Marum), it would not in his (the Solicitor General's) opinion have any effect at all. The words were—
Or the non-compliance with any of the provisions of the third section of 'The Land Law (Ireland) Act, 1881,' shall not he deemed to invalidate a claim to any qualification.He did not quite understand what was meant by non-compliance with any of the provisions of the 3rd section of the Land Act, because that section provided that a man had to bequeath to one person only. If a man bequeathed to more than one person, he (the Solicitor General) did not understand what was to follow. If the hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Marum) was agreeable, they would confer together to see whether the difficulty suggested could be properly met. Whatever evil there was, he (the Solicitor General) did not think it would be remedied by this clause. He thought that, as a matter of fact, the clause would be a mere nullity.
§ MR. MARUMsaid, he would point out that it was possible that there might be pendency of proceedings within the 12 months to determine who was the tenant of premises. It was to prevent the pendency of proceedings invalidating a claim to a qualification, that he proposed this clause. He knew many persons who did not like to sub-divide a holding. They agreed amongst themselves, and then came the difficulty who was the tenant? When they came before the Revising Barrister, that gentleman invariably asked, first of all, who the occupier was.
§ THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. WALKER)said, that if the hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Marum) would confer with the Law Officers, they would be very happy to do what they could to meet his views. If, after a conference, the hon. and learned Gentleman preferred his own words, he 1418 could move to re-introduce his clause on the Report.
§ MR. MARUMsaid, he would very gladly avail himself of the suggestion, of the hon. and learned Gentleman.
§ Motion and Clause, by leave, withdrawn.